POLLY 

PRENTISS 

Keeps a. Promise 

} ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD 



Copight N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


I 

























* 








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“i’m going to have griddle cakes for breakfast” 



Prentiss 
a Promise 


Elizabeth 


Lincoln Gould 


AUTHOR OF 


“Little Polly Prentiss” 
Polly Prentiss Goes to School 
‘Polly Prentiss Goes a-Visiting’ 
The Felicia Books,” etc. 


Illustrated by Elizabeth Otis 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

M C M X I V 






COPYRIGHT 
1914 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 




JUL 21 1914 

©CLA376728 

t 


4 


Introduction 


The first book of this series, “ Little Polly Pren- 
tiss,” tells of the adoption of Polly by Miss Hester 
Pomeroy of Pomeroy Oaks. In the second book, 
“ Polly Prentiss Goes to School,” the story of 
Polly’s first winter at the Quaker school and of her 
special friends and the test of her loyalty is told. 
In “ Polly Prentiss Goes a- Visiting ” there is a trip 
to Washington, where Polly and her best friends are 
bridesmaids at a wedding, and where they see many 
interesting people and things. There is also told 
the story of the shadow that darkens Pomeroy 
Oaks for a time and then is lifted. 

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3 









Contents 


I. 

Planting Seeds . 



9 

II. 

Promises and Plans . 



17 

III. 

A Queer Letter 



25 

IY. 

Polly Decides . 



32 

Y. 

The Boarder 



43 

YI. 

Trouble 



55 

YII. 

Polly Learning How 



66 

YIII. 

The Gypsies 



78 

IX. 

Robert Speaks Up . 



90 

X. 

Polly Has an Idea . 



103 

XI. 

The Selectmen . 



114 

XII. 

What Mrs. Hale Said 



123 

XIII. 

Fireworks . 



133 

XIY. 

Mrs. Leeds Helps 



146 

XY. 

At the Farm 



157 

XYI. 

Two Old Quarrels Mended . 


168 

XYII. 

A Great Success 



180 

XYIII. 

“ A Loving Heart ” . 



190 


5 



Illustrations 

PAGE 

“ I’m Going to Have Griddle Cakes” Frontispiece 1/ 

She Walked Slowly Back to the Bench . 33 ^ 

At the Gap in the Stone Wall ... 84 ^ 

She Smoothed the Bed-Spread with Special 

Care . . .... 132 

u It’s a Regular Bower op Beauty ” . . 174 


Polly Prentiss Keeps a Promise 


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Polly Prentiss Keeps a Promise 


CHAPTER I 

PLANTING SEEDS 

It was as lovely a June day as ever dawned, and 
the row of milk pans on the porch at Manser Farm 
caught the sun and shone like silver. But on the 
little group of old people gathered behind the barn 
the brightness of the day had no effect ; indeed a sky 
overcast with heavy clouds would better have suited 
their mood. 

“ What’s the use of planting a garden for other 
folks to get all the advantages of it ? ” inquired Mr. 
Blodgett, surveying gloomily his rows of early pea 
vines. “ ’Most broke our backs, Father Manser and 
I did, hoeing, planting and all, and now what’s com- 
ing of it ? ” 

“ And my ’sturtiums,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, fiercely, 
pointing to an old stone wall, a stretch of which was 
already brightened here and there by sturdy climbers. 
“ My stars ! I’ll tear every one o’ those plants out o’ 
the ground before I’ll leave ’em for strangers to pick 
9 


10 


POLLY PRENTISS 


and gloat over. I paid for those seeds myself, and 
they were the best mixed, and one package of Sunset 
Beauties. Ever since I saw ’em pictured out in the 
catalogue I made up my mind I’d have ’em, and 
when they were at their best I’d take a bunch to 
Miss Hetty Pomeroy. Well, that’s the way all my 
plans turn out. I might ’ve known.” 

“ And I was counting on my pansies,” said Aunty 
Peebles sorrowfully. “ Polly’s always set such store 
by pansies, and I’d found just the best spot for them. 
There’s so little we can do, anyway.” 

“ Little ! there’s nothing ! ” grumbled Mrs. Bams- 
dell. “ What the town decides has to be done, that’s 
all ! What does the town care about a little parcel 
of old folks like us, when it comes to saving money ? 
They aren’t going to keep up a home for us when 
they can shift us over into the Greenby Farm. I 
don’t suppose there’s one o’ the selectmen that thinks 
it would make a mite o’ difference to such poor old 
things whether we stay here or are shipped off to 
Californy, so long as there’s a roof over our 
heads.” 

“ They don’t ship ’em to Californy nowadays,” 
said Uncle Blodgett. “ They send ’em overland. I 
should like to travel somewheres first-rate, if ’twasn’t 
for losing sight o’ Polly.” 

“ Aha ! there’s always an ‘ if,’ ” said Mrs. Bams- 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


II 


dell shrewdly. “ I guess it’s Polly we’re all think- 
ing of, more or less. Do you suppose she’s heard of 
this plan ? Miss He tty ’d hate to tell her, if she 
knows of it herself. It’s more’n a week since 
we’ve seen her.” 

“ Don’t I hear wheels coming along the road, 
down by the willows ? ” asked Aunty Peebles. 
“ You that have full sight strain it a mite and see if 
there isn’t something coming this way.” 

“ There is,” announced Mrs. Ramsdell ; “ there’s a 
cloud of dust rising same as it always does in that 
sandy spot except when it’s pouring. And I don’t 
think I’m mistaken in saying — no, I’m not — that’s 
Polly’s pink dress I see. Well, there’s one good 
thing going to happen to us to-day, that’s certain. 
Now all of you have a care what you say, for if she 
doesn’t know about the moving yet, we don’t want 
to be the ones to tell her.” 

“ If you don’t throw it at her I guess nobody else 
will,” said Uncle Blodgett with some resentment in 
his tone. 

In a few minutes the brisk little horse driven by 
Hiram Green stopped at the lower end of the sandy 
driveway, and Polly waved her hand in good-bye to 
Hiram and ran up the slope toward the old people 
so eagerly awaiting her. 

“ I was hoping you’d all be out here,” called Polly 


12 


POLLY PRENTISS 


before she reached them. “ I’ve brought over some 
new seeds for you to plant ; they’re a late-blooming 
kind, and they’ve just come. Robert’s mother sent 
them to me, ’specially for you. And I want to see 
them planted. Hiram has to go to the Twitchells’, 
and he won’t be back for almost an hour. There’ll 
be plenty of time, won’t there ? ” 

By this time she had reached the group, each 
member of which had a hearty kiss from her fresh 
young lips. Mrs. Ramsdell came last, and she held 
Polly at arm’s length when her greeting was ac- 
complished, looking at the little girl with the fierce 
tenderness which no one else* ever brought to her 
vivid old face. 

“ There’s time enough, but it’s no use our plant- 
ing,” came from between the straight line of her lips. 
“ I’ve charged ’em all not to tell you, and now I’m 
doing it myself. Ho, I won’t, either ! Sam’l 
Blodgett, you tell Polly what’s going to become of 
us.” 

“ Don’t look so troubled, little girl,” said Uncle 
Blodgett, as Polly, leaving Mrs. Ramsdell, stepped 
close to him, and laid her hand on his shabby coat- 
sleeve. “ It isn’t anything so very bad.” 

“ Oh, no, it’s quite agreeable, on the whole,” mut- 
tered Mrs. Ramsdell. “ Just what we’ve been wish- 
ing for and needing, I s’pose you’ll say next.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


13 


“ ’Long as you’ve laid this task on me, why not let 
me ’tend to it,” suggested Uncle Blodgett. He took 
Polly’s hand in both of his own, his gnarled old 
fingers closing around hers in a steady clasp. 

“ You see, Polly,” he began, “ it’s like this. Ash- 
don isn’t a rich town, and every expense counts up. 
Winters, for instance, keeping this house warm for 
us, and providing us with food and all, why, it costs 
considerable. You see that, don’t you ? ” 

Polly shook her head. She had spent cold 
winters at Manser Farm, and she knew how the heat 
was conserved. Also she knew the appetites of her 
old friends. 

“ It does cost considerable,” insisted Uncle Blod- 
gett gently, “ and we aren’t any of us worth much as 
workers now. And the Greenby Farm is only about 
half full, they say, and the manager of it is going 
out West to live. So what the two towns propose 
to do is to unite forces ; and as the Greenby Farm is 
in a warmer location than this, and bigger, we’re to 
be moved over there the last o’ the summer — well, 
say about the middle,” he amended with Mrs. Rams- 
dell’s accusing eye fixed upon him, “ and the Mansers 
are to be put in charge. That’s one thing : we shall 
all be together, same as we have here. You see it 
isn’t so bad,” he ended, patting Polly’s hand which 
had grown very cold in his olasp. 


H 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Polly’s eyes were wide with indignation, and her 
cheeks flamed as she stood there. Suddenly she 
pulled her hand away from Uncle Blodgett’s and 
struck her other hand a stinging blow. Polly was 
not only bewildered ; she was angry. 

“ It’s mean ! ” she cried, looking from one to an- 
other of her friends, her anger mounting as she 
looked. 44 It’s the meanest thing I ever heard ! 
Why, this is your home. I’ll tell my Aunt Hetty. 
She won’t let the selectmen do such a thing. Who 
would live here ? ” 

44 Hate Downer and his wife,” said Mrs. Ramsdell 
bitterly. 44 That’s Squire Downer’s nephew who 
married the city girl. I’ve never seen either of ’em, 
but I understand they’ve got means between ’em. 
They’ll pay rent for the place till they see how they 
like it, and if it suits they’ll buy it. They can get it 
cheap, and there’s good air and water here. There’s 
talk of new paint and paper, and later on a hot water 
furnace ! ” 

Polly’s little hands struck each other again. 

44 1 can’t let it be that way,” she said, her pretty 
head taking the set on her shoulders which had some- 
times brought her swift discipline in the old days of 
her life at Manser Farm. 44 And I just won't, Uncle 
Blodgett and Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles, and 
dear Grandma Manser. Do you want to go away 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 5 

from here ? ” she asked, her lips close to the ear of 
the quiet knitter. “ I know you don’t ! ” 

“ I hoped to stay here long as I lived, dearie,” said 
the old woman, her eyes turning from Polly’s face to 
the distant hills. “ ’Tisn’t the most beautiful place 
in the world, but it’s been my home for a good 
many years, and when folks get to my age, they 
don’t like changes. But I expect the changes have 
got to come.” 

“ They shan’t,” said Polly, determinedly. “ They 
shall not! At any rate not this kind, Grandma 
Manser. I shall go right home and talk to Aunt 
Hetty and we’ll decide what is to be done first — and 
then we’ll do it.” 

Polly was such a brave little figure as she stood 
there that in spite of their doubts her eager assur- 
ance infected them with hope. She nodded at them, 
her curls dancing in the June breeze. 

“How let’s plant these seeds just as if nothing 
were going to happen,” said Polly, “ for nothing is — 
so there ! Don’t you worry another minute about it, 
one of you. And to-morrow or next day I’ll 
come over and tell you what we have decided to do. 
Please let me take up the first trowel full of earth 
over in that bed, just for luck, Uncle Blodgett. And 
next October I shall come up here some morning and 
I shall expect a big bouquet of perfectly beautiful 


i6 


POLLY PRENTISS 


chrysanthemums. Some of them are gold, and some 
are bronze colored, and some are the most wonderful 
striped kind, and all feathery at the edges. 

“ And when they have the County Fair,” went on 
Polly, nodding at them all again, “ I expect that 
the first prize for chrysanthemums will be taken by 
Ashdon Farm. That’s what I expect. Now please 
give me the sharpest trowel, Uncle Blodgett.” 

“ And ’tisn’t three years ago that we thought of 
her as just a little speck of a thing that had got to 
be kind of kittened up and played with,” mused 
Uncle Blodgett half an hour later, standing at the 
foot of the road where he had said good-bye to Polly 
and had exchanged a word with Hiram. “ Dear 
me ! how time does tear along. She’s only a slip of a 
girl now, but she’s put heart into every one of us. I 
don’t know how she’s going to fix things — I don’t 
know as she can fix ’em at all — but someway or other 
I can’t help feeling cheered all through. Isn’t that 
a blackbird tuning up over there ? Sure as I live, 
’tis. Good for you, little fellar ! You pipe up lively 
as you can. I’ve a mind to sit right down on this 
stone and listen to ye ! But I suppose ’twould be the 
part o’ wisdom to let you sing me up the hill in- 
stead. So good-day to ye, little master ! ” 


CHAPTER II 


PROMISES AND PLANS 

Polly was sitting on a leather hassock before the 
fire, her head against Miss Pomeroy’s knees. She 
had been talking eagerly for a long time, while her 
Aunt Hetty listened, sometimes smiling over Polly’s 
head, sometimes regarding her gravely. At last 
there fell a silence between them. Polly waited, for 
surely now it was Aunt Hetty’s turn to speak. 

“ You promised them all — Mrs. Ramsdell and Miss 
Peebles, dear old Mrs. Manser and Mr. Blodgett, that 
they should not go away from Manser Farm,” said 
Miss Pomeroy slowly. “ Well, my dear, that was 
quite a large promise for any one to make. How do 
you mean to keep it ? 

“Why — I thought you’d surely know how we 
could do it, Aunt Hetty. I thought you’d just tell 
the selectmen that they must give up the plan right 
away. Arctura says you are the most influential 
person in town, Aunt Hetty, and I knew you’d feel 
exactly as I did about it. I felt perfectly sure, Aunt 
Hetty, that if Hiram had told you about it, you 

17 


xS 


POLLY PRENTISS 


would have attended to it right away. Oh, don’t 
you feel as I do ? ” 

Polly’s eyes implored her so that Miss Pomeroy 
could not find it in her heart to deny them. Polly 
herself, sitting up very straight on her footstool, 
was hard to resist. But Miss Pomeroy felt that 
there was a crisis to be met which should not be 
avoided. 

“I feel exactly as you do,” she began slowly. 
“Wait ! ” as Polly settled back with a little sigh of 
relief. “I feel as you do, but I should not have 
dared to promise what you have, Polly. I am not a 
rich woman, and just now my eyes, as you know, are 
costing me a great deal. I could not undertake to 
buy Manser Farm, and hire the Mansers to run it 
for the dear old friends of whom we are so fond. 
And unless I could do that, and promise to do it as 
long as they live, I should have no right to interfere 
with the present plan. You see, Polly, in all little 
things when you have promised help I’ve been able 
to grant your wish. Now this is a time when I 
can’t. You must think of some other way. You’re 
getting to be a big girl, you know, and big girls 
sometimes have big problems to face. If I could 
spare the money I’m not sure after all that it would 
be best for me to give it.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Hetty ! ” gasped Polly. “ I never 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


19 


thought of money, not for a minute ! I only thought 
you’d speak your mind, that’s all. I thought that 
would be enough ! ” 

Miss Pomeroy shook her head. 

“ This isn’t a case where speaking my mind would 
do any good, Polly,” she said soberly. “ Has Hiram 
told you what Mr. Downer has agreed to pay for the 
rent of the farm if he takes it ? ” 

“ Twenty-five dollars a month,” said Polly in a 
very small voice. “ That is three hundred dollars a 
year. He’s to have it for a year on trial. But Hiram 
says the papers haven’t been signed yet, for there is 
some kind of a legality that has to be looked out for. 
What is a legality, Aunt Hetty ? ” 

“It might be almost anything,” laughed Miss 
Pomeroy, “ but in this case it probably has something 
to do with making sure that the town has a right to 
dispose of the property which was given it fifty years 
ago by Tobias Ladd, to be held and used as a home 
for such poor of the town as lacked the wherewithal 
to establish or maintain homes of their own.” 

“ Maybe they’ll find they haven’t the right,” said 
Polly joyfully. “ Then we wouldn’t have to worry 
about it one bit.” 

“I’m afraid there is no such simple way out, 
Polly,” and Miss Pomeroy smiled down at the eager, 
flushed face. “ You see unfortunately Mr. Ladd 


20 


POLLY PRENTISS 


left very little money to run his charity, and the 
farm, never very profitable, has yielded less and less 
as the years have gone. When the Mansers came to 
take charge of it it was in a pretty bad state, and 
although Mr. Manser has worked hard, with his in- 
sufficient help, the results have not been very encour- 
aging. Greenby Farm, on the other hand, I am told, 
is in excellent condition.” 

There came another silence while Polly thought 
hard, rubbing her hand across her soft forehead. 

“ If I could think of a way to make three hundred 
dollars, Aunt Hetty, and if we knew some young, 
strong man who wanted a place to ‘ try his hand at 
farming,’ as Hiram says, and who had a nice, pretty, 
kind young wife, and I could get money enough to 
pay for food and wood for the winter — then don’t ' 
you suppose the selectmen would tell Mr. Downer he 
couldn’t have it till the last of next summer any- 
way ? ” Polly’s voice was so anxious as it hurried 
to tell her hopes that Miss Pomeroy laid her hand 
on the bright curls and steadied the little head be- 
fore she spoke. 

“ I think perhaps they might do that, Polly,” she 
assented. “Mind you, child, I’m not sure; I only 
think so. I heard to-day that Mr. Downer’s wife 
had other plans for the fall and winter, and isn’t es- 
pecially pleased at the thought of coming here. She 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


21 


is a young woman who likes a good deal of change, 
I believe.” 

Polly’s mind had run on so far ahead of her Aunt 
Hetty’s words at the first hint of hope, that by the 
time Miss Pomeroy finished her fears had almost 
vanished. 

“How much do you think we ought to allow for 
food and wood, Aunt Hetty ? ” she asked breath- 
lessly. “Wait just a minute, please, till I get paper 
and pencil and put it all down so I’ll see just how 
much money I must have. You know I get all 
mixed up doing arithmetic in my head, and this is 
too complicated for just my fingers.” 

A moment later she was seated again with a sheet 
of paper on a large atlas, and a soft, none too well- 
sharpened, lead pencil. It must be admitted that 
Polly’s mathematical problems were never very neat 
although they always gave evidence that she had 
worked hard over them. 

44 How,” she said, writing across the top of her 
sheet in bold, straggling letters, “I’ve put down 
4 Expenses of Polly Prentiss for Manser Farm.’ First 
of all I’ll put down the three hundred dollars, for 
that’s the worst, and I might as well get it over with. 
It looks very big, doesn’t it, Aunt Hetty ? ” 

44 It need not be quite so big, perhaps,” said Miss 
Pomeroy thoughtfully. 44 Of course Ashdon will 


22 


POLLY PRENTISS 


have to pay Greenby something each year. That 
ought to be subtracted from the three hundred dol- 
lars, I suppose. In fact I’m not sure but what most 
of it could be subtracted, Polly. The town has no 
right to make money out of Manser Farm, I know. 
Whatever money comes from it must be used for the 
poor in some way — and if you were looking out for 
the living of the old people who have been the only 
inmates of the farm for years, why, I don’t know ” 

Polly clasped her hands, letting the atlas fall to 
the floor with a crash, carrying the paper and pencil 
with it. 

“ I’ll write to my senator this very week, Aunt 
Hetty, and ask him to tell me exactly how it would 
be,” she cried. “ He knows all about the law. I 
wish I did. Oh, I wish I knew about everything ! 
Suppose they had to pay Greenby all that three 
hundred dollars, Aunt Hetty. Then — why then it 
seems as if all I’d have to think about would be 
just the food and to keep them warm in cold 
weather.” 

“ Don’t you think perhaps the strong young man 
and his pretty, kind wife ought to have a little some- 
thing for taking care of your family of old people 
who will probably be strangers to them, Polly ? ” 
asked Miss Pomeroy. “ Have you any one in mind 
for such a position, my dear ? For you cannot count 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


23 


on the Mansers staying in any event. Arctura tells 
me that Mrs. Manser is as nearly delighted over the 
prospect of going as she can be over anything.” 

“ No, Aunt Hetty, I haven’t really selected any- 
body,” admitted Polly. “ But I’m sure there’ll be 
somebody if I can only fix the rest of it. Do you — 
do you think I’d better go to see the selectmen, Aunt 
Hetty, and ask them to tell me just what it will cost 
to run Manser Farm for a year. Would that be a 
good idea ? ” 

“ I think perhaps I might attend to that part of 
it,” said Miss Hetty, glad that the firelight did not 
touch her face at the moment, for Polly would not 
have understood her smile. “ At any rate, there is 
one thing I am quite sure of, and that is that it’s high 
time you were in bed, letting that active little brain 
of yours rest for a few hours.” 

“ Yes’m, I’ll go right away,” said Polly demurely ; 
“ and if you should think of any way for me to make 
money, after I’ve gone to bed, Aunt Hetty, you’d 
tell me in the morning, wouldn’t you ? ” 

“ I surely would,” said Miss Pomeroy, her words 
half smothered by Polly’s arms which flew to clasp 
each other around her neck, while Polly’s warm lips 

were pressed to hers. “ In fact ” 

“ In fact what, Aunt Hetty ? Please tell me,” 
begged Polly. 


24 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ Not a word,” said Miss Pomeroy firmly, “ not 
one single word, Polly. Off with yon now ! ” 

And Polly with a last hug unclasped her arms, 
rescued the atlas and its attendants from the hearth- 
rug, and playing on the big book as if it were a 
tambourine, danced out of the room and up-stairs to 
bed. There in spite of her plans to stay awake she 
fell promptly to sleep and dreamed that she was 
mistress of the Manser Farm and was trying to make 
the kitchen fire on a frosty morning without either a 
stick of wood or a lump of coal. 


CHAPTER III 


A QUEER LETTER 

When the sound of Polly’s dancing feet had died 
away, Miss Hetty took from a little bag which lay in 
her lap a letter. Its envelope was addressed in a 
queer, cramped hand, to “ Hester Pomeroy,” and it 
had an uncompromising look which made Miss Hetty 
smile as she glanced at it. 

“ When Arctura comes in I’ll get her to read it to 
me,” she said. “ I won’t try my eyes with it a second 
time. Beside, I should like to hear Arctura’s com- 
ments, they are so sure to be amusing. I wonder 
what Polly will decide — for I shall let her decide, 
and make it clear that there must be no going back 
on her decision. Dear, dear ! how I hate to think 
that Polly is growing up ! But a little responsibility 
won’t hurt her, and she’s always sure to have a good 
time, no matter what happens. Here comes Arctura 
now.” 

“ How you feeling to-night ? ” questioned Arctura. 
“ It’s been a good day for your eyes, hasn’t it ? I 
knew it had. When I think how scared I was about 

25 


26 


POLLY PRENTISS 


’em in the spring it seems just like a nightmare. 
Anything there you want I should read to you ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Hetty. “It’s a letter from an 
old friend of mine, Arctura, and before you begin to 
read it I want to tell you a little about her. She is 
a very rich woman who has had her own way all her 
life except about winning love. Her husband died 
soon after they were married and even in the short 
time they were together he had learned to fear her 
iron will. She has almost adopted three young peo- 
ple, one after another, and given them up because 
they had wills of their own, and many friends she 
has given up for the same reason. She has held to 
me, perhaps, because for years we have seen so little 
of each other. And now she is lonely and not very 

well and Here, Arctura, take the letter and 

read it, slowly, to me.” 

“ I guess I should have to read it slowly,” said 
Arctura, as she opened the thick, square sheet and 
gazed at it with frank scorn. “ Why, it looks more 
like hen-tracks than anything else. What’s the 
reason she left off the ‘ Miss ’ before your name on 
the envelope, I’d like to know. Hiram remarked on 
it to me, for the postmaster remarked on it to him. 
Doesn’t look very polite, according to my notions.” 

“ Never mind,” said Miss Hetty ; “ that’s just one of 
her ways, Arctura.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


2 ? 


“ Humph ! ” said Arctura. “ Well, here ’tis : 

“ ‘ Dear Hester : 

“ 4 If I didn’t know all your circumstances and 
just how your father left you, I should not be writ- 
ing this letter, but as it is I have not the slightest 
hesitation about it. And as 7 have never been one 
to dilly-dally or beat about the bush I will go straight 
to the point. The house down on the Cape to which 
I have been for J uly and August for the last nine 
years has just been burned to the ground, and I am 
left without a home for those two months. The 
woman who has run the house and has really been 
quite thoughtful and attentive to me writes that 
there is no suitable house she can hire for the sum- 
mer, so she is going to take a complete rest. I con- 
sider that a great mistake for a woman in her posi- 
tion, needing to earn money, and I have written 
telling her so ; but she’s always been stubborn as a 
mule, so I don’t imagine my words will change her 
foolish purpose. 

“ 4 And so it turns out that I have to find another 
place, and I suddenly remembered you and your 
home at Pomeroy Oaks. I remember it as a pleas- 
ant place and quiet ; that’s what I must have this 
summer, the doctor says, quiet. Now if you’ll take 
me in for the months of July and August, give me 
two rooms — for I must have my own sitting-room, 
and arrange to have somebody do such waiting on 
me as I require — it isn’t very much — I will pay 
you twenty -five dollars a week. That’s what I paid 
down on the Cape, and I’ve no doubt your accom- 
modations and food will be fully as good as what I 
got there. 


28 


POLLY PRENTISS 


44 4 At any rate, I’m quite willing to risk it. Let 
me know within a week what you decide. I don’t 
imagine it will take you long, for even if you’ve 
never had a boarder before, you must know that you 
can clear a good round sum every week at my price. 
I remember hearing that you thought of adopting a 
child. I hope you weren’t so foolish, at your age. I 
never was given to sentiment, as you know, but I 
really shall be glad to see you again. When you 
write, send me particulars about trains and so on. 
Hoping to hear from you within a day or two, 

“ 4 Your old friend, 

44 4 Maria Leeds. 

44 4 P. S. — I wish to go away about the twenty-first 
of June this year.’ ” 


Arctura’s color had mounted higher and higher as 
she read. Once or twice she paused and looked as 
if she could scarcely hold back her opinion of the 
letter and its writer, but at last she managed to finish 
it. Then her wrath burst forth. 

44 Well, I must say!” she began. 44 Of all the 
saucy — what does she — who does she think she’s 
writing to, I’d like to know ? If I didn’t know 
better I should suppose you were feeling the pinch 
of poverty from the way she writes. Her and her 
twenty-five dollars a week. I wonder at her dar- 
ing ! ” 

44 That’s a great deal of money, Arctura,” said 
Miss Hetty. 44 Do you realize that it means over 


KEEPS A PROMISE 29 

two hundred dollars for the two months? Think 
what could be done with it.” 

The color in Arctura’s face was dying down and 
she looked at Miss Hetty, still indignant but with a 
dawning light of surrender in her eyes. 

“Wouldn’t she eat up a lot of it ?” questioned 
Arctura. “ I always mistrust these half -invalid 
folks. I had a cousin once that looked pindling and 
pale all the time, but my land ! she could make way 
with as much food at a meal as Hiram and I to- 
gether.” 

“ Mrs. Leeds has not that sort of appetite, 
Arctura,” said Miss Hetty laughing. “She has 
been a small eater all her life, and she prides herself 
on her slender figure ; you could not persuade her to 
eat what you consider a good hearty meal. I think 
Hiram must remember her, although I know now 
that it has just happened you have been away both 
times when she visited us for a day or two, and she 
has not been here for ten years. What do you think 
Polly will say, Arctura ? I’m going to let her have 
Mrs. Leeds for her boarder, if she wishes to under- 
take it, and let Polly have the money for the Manser 
Farm people. Will you help out, Arctura, if Polly 
decides to try it ? ” 

Arctura swallowed hard, twice, before she spoke. 

“ Of course I will,” she said at last. “ But Polly’s 


30 


POLLY PRENTISS 


been planning all sorts of good times, and to be eyes 
for you all summer, so you could save your own, and 
to have those school friends of hers here and those 
Olsen twins — how’s she going to get it all in ?” 

“ She can get most of it in if she tries hard 
enough,” said Miss Pomeroy, “ and it won’t hurt her 
one bit, Arctura. Polly’s a dear, unselfish child, and 
it’s a great temptation to you and me to give her 
everything she wants and to pet her all the time. It 
seems to be a temptation to everybody to pet Polly — 
and I must say I can’t see that she’s been hurt yet,” 
added Miss Hetty. 

“ Well, you let anybody show me a sweeter little 
girl anywhere,” said Arctura firmly, “ and then I 
might begin to think she could be improved, maybe. 
But I see your point ; you think this will kind of 
strengthen her character, now she’s begun to grow 
up. Well, I’ll stand by. But where do the children 
come in ? ” 

“ If Polly decides to take Mrs. Leeds as a boarder,” 
said Miss Hetty, “ she can write each of the chil- 
dren, and I will write all the mothers, explaining the 
situation and asking if the little girls and Francis 
may come for the first two weeks in September. I 
think the mothers will all understand, from what 
Miss Alma has told me of them.” 

“ Won’t that two weeks eat a pretty good hole in 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


3 1 


the profits from Polly’s boarder ? ” asked Arctura 
shrewdly. “ Those children won’t be trying to keep 
slim figures, I reckon. And won’t they tire you to 
pieces, all coming in a lump that way ? ” 

“ Robert’s father has been wanting to do 
something special for Polly,” said Miss Pomeroy 
laughing at Arctura’s accusing face. “ I shall let 
him help me out if the entertaining proves too ex- 
pensive. You know milk and fruit will do a great 
deal, Arctura. You needn’t worry. And if the 
children tire me I can run up-stairs to my own room 
— but I shan’t wish to, I’m quite sure.” 

“ We-ell,” said Arctura, “ it looks to me as if we’d 
all got a summer of work cut out for us, one way or 
another. The only thing I do say is, Miss Hetty, 
that woman’s got to keep out o’ my kitchen. I can’t 
have strange folks traipsing in and out there. When 
you going to see the selectmen ? ” 

“ If I’m not mistaken one of them is coming to see 
me now,” said Miss Hetty. “ Arctura, will you ask 
Mr. Hale to come in here, please,” as the knocker on 
the front door fell with a loud clang. 

“ Well, I never ! ” muttered Arctura as she moved 
with leisurely steps to answer the knock. “If I 
don’t give it to Hiram Green ! He must have taken 
a letter or a message to Daniel Hale, and never told 
me one word of it. I’ll attend to his case ! ” 


CHAPTER IV 


POLLY DECIDE8 

When Polly entered the dining-room next morn- 
ing, she was all eagerness and impatience, and Miss 
Pomeroy found it very hard to sit through breakfast 
with Polly’s eyes fixed on her, and Polly’s questions 
tumbling out one after another. 

“ I could hardly tie the bow on my hair, Aunt 
Hetty, for thinking what ‘in fact’ might mean,” 
said Polly. “ You see I didn’t tie it very well,” and 
she turned her curly head to show two rampant 
loops and ends of brown ribbon, by no means in the 
middle of her hair where they were designed to rest. 

“ I see,” said Miss Pomeroy. “ Now, Polly, you 
might just as well make up your mind to eat your 
breakfast, for you will hear nothing about 4 in fact ’ 
or anything else from me until you have finished it.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Hetty, if I didn’t know you so well, 
your voice would sound almost stern to me,” laughed 
Polly. “ I will be very good and eat my breakfast 
without another question ; but I may eat it faster 
than Miss Dorothea would think was quite proper,” 
she added mischievously. “You won’t mind that, 
3 2 



SHE WALKED SLOWLY BACK TO THE BENCH 





KEEPS A PROMISE 


33 


just on this one important occasion, will you, Aunt 
Hetty?” 

When breakfast was over, Polly snuggled herself 
close to her aunt on the bench in the garden where 
Miss Pomeroy always sat for a while on warm morn- 
ings, enjoying the perfume of her roses and tasting 
the soft air. 

“ Now” said Polly coaxingly. “ Now, Aunt 
Hetty, please finish ‘ in fact.’ ” 

“ I’ll give you a letter to read, Polly,” said Miss 
Pomeroy bravely. “ But before you read it I want 
to tell you as I told Arctura — yes, she has seen the 
letter — that the writer is a lonely, sad woman with 
a very difficult temper, and a very exacting disposi- 
tion. She has never been an easy person for any one 
to live with, and I am certain that the years have 
not changed her for the better. On the other hand 
— read the letter and make a careful decision for 
yourself, my dear, while I walk down the path to 
the Scotch rose-bush. I wish to see if Hiram’s last 
spraying was successful.” 

Miss Pomeroy would much rather have stayed on 
the bench to watch Polly’s face as she read, but she 
resolutely turned away, and strolled down the path. 
When her inspection of the Scotch rose was finished 
she walked slowly back to the bench. Polly sat 
there, very still, the letter open in her lap, her cheeks 


34 


POLLY PRENTISS 


pink, and her under lip caught between her teeth. 
As Miss Pomeroy sat down again on the bench, 
Polly leaned against her with a little sigh. 

“ Am I the one to decide about it, Aunt Hetty ? ” 
she asked pleadingly. “ Wouldn’t you please tell me 
whether you’d rather have her come or not have 
her ? ” 

“ It is for you to decide,” Miss Pomeroy told her. 
“ She is to be your boarder if she comes, Polly, and 
you may have all the money you can make for your 
Manser Farm people, if you decide to take her. 
Arctura is willing to do her share of the extra work 
that will come, and she will advise you in many 
ways.” 

“ Perhaps even if I get the money the selectmen 
will not let them stay at Manser Farm after all,” 
faltered Polly. 

“ Yes, I saw Mr. Hale last night ; he came here 
after you had gone to bed,” said Miss Hetty. “ If 
the expenses can be guaranteed, above what the town 
Will have to pay Greenby when the combination is 
made, they are willing to wait another year. Mr. 
Downer’s offer will hold over for that length of 
time.” 

“ But how can I read to you and do all the other 
things we had planned if Mrs. Leeds is here?” 
queried Polly. “ Don’t you need me, Aunt Hetty ? ” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


35 


“ You’ll have plenty of odd minutes to spare,” said 
Miss Pomeroy in her most matter-of-fact tone. 
“ Don’t worry about that, my dear. And Kobert’s 
mother and father are very anxious to have me take 
a short trip in their new car this summer. That 
would be for nearly a week. I shall get on beauti- 
fully. You have only yourself (and your promise) 
to think of when it comes to your decision.” 

Polly swallowed hard, and clasped her hands 
around Miss Pomeroy’s arm. 

“ I suppose — I suppose I ought to be just as thank- 
ful as I can be, to think this wonderful chance has 
come, like dropping right out of the sky, Aunt 
Hetty,” she said slowly. “ But somehow, somehow 
I had thought it would be one big thing I could do, 
not a whole lot of little ones, day after day, all sum- 
mer, and most of them not so very pleasant.” 

Miss Pomeroy smiled but made no other answer. 

“ Do you suppose she will like me ? ” the soft lit- 
tle voice went on. “ I can tell she doesn’t approve 
of adoptions, Aunt Hetty. Do you think she would 
make up her mind not to like me even the least little 
bit ? Of course it’s a great deal easier to do things 
for people when they like you. ’Most every- 
body ” Polly’s voice trailed away. 

“ Most people like you, Polly, so it is pleasant and 
easy to do things for them ; that is what you mean, 


36 


POLLY PRENTISS 


I think,” said Miss Pomeroy. “Well, dear, if Mrs. 
Leeds doesn’t care especially for you, won’t that 
make it all the more worth while to do all you can 
for her, and so help your old friends ? It isn’t as if 
you had anything to be afraid of, Polly. You will 
be right here, in your own home, where you belong 
and with those who love you,” and she gave a reas- 
suring pat to Polly’s hands. 

There was a pause, and then Polly sat up, 
straightening her back, a resolute look on her rosy 
face. 

“ Will you please write her she may come, Aunt 
Hetty,” she said firmly, “ and — shall you tell her she 
is to be my boarder ? ” 

“Ho, I think I will leave that for a surprise,” said 
Miss Pomeroy, and Polly could tell by the twinkle 
in her eyes that something pleased her. “ I will go 
in now and write my letter, so Hiram can post it this 
morning. You run in and have a little talk with 
Arctura, for you two will have a great many plans to 
make. And, Polly — you haven’t said anything about 
the visitors you were to ask for part of August — your 
school friends.” 

“ Ho,” said Polly. “ I thought of that one of the 
first things, Aunt Hetty. I s’posed I’d have to write 
and explain to them. They would all understand, 
except perhaps Josephine. I’m afraid she will be 


KEEPS A PROMISE 37 

what she calls 4 some mad ’ at me, Aunt Hetty. She 
will not like to lose her visit.” 

44 I intend to arrange all that,” said Miss Pome- 
roy. “ I will see to it that Josephine does not get 
4 some mad ’ with you, Polly, whatever else she 
does.” 

“ Oh, thank you,” and Polly’s face cleared. 
44 She’s the only one I’d worry about, because she’s 
very determined, and she doesn’t have so many good 
times as the others, either. But if you attend to it, 

she will be all right, of course Arctura ! if you’re 

going out to the barn, please wait for me. I want to 
see you, ’specially, right away.” 

44 Ho time to waste this morning,” said Arctura 
briskly, pausing on her march along the kitchen path 
to allow Polly to catch up with her. 44 Great doings 
on hand in the barn, and Hiram needs this pail of 
hot soap-suds — even if he doesn’t know it ! You 
just hold on to what you want to say for about five 
minutes till I’ve put these suds where they’ll do the 
most good, and then you can help me put away the 
things in the old barn chest, and we can have a good 
talk while we’re doing it.” 

44 1 didn’t know there were going to be ladies at 
my party,” said Hiram when Polly with Arctura and 
her pail of suds entered the barn. 44 I’m not fixed 
real pretty for visitors this morning, but I’m glad to 


38 


POLLY PRENTISS 


see you, just the same. This is my spring house- 
cleaning, kind of delayed on account of the backward 
weather. Can I offer you seats ? ” 

Polly laughed as she looked at the confusion 
which reigned instead of Hiram’s usual order. 
Harnesses, whips, reins, strings of bells, fur and 
linen robes and all sorts of carriage gear were scat- 
tered about the floor, hanging from unaccustomed 
nails and lying on old stools and boxes. Arctura 
was vigorously splashing her hot soap-suds in all 
directions. 

“Now you get right after that with a broom, 
Hiram,” she commanded when the pail had yielded 
its last drop, “ and Polly and I will sit over here and 
fold and put away in the chest. Where’s that pack- 
age o’ camphor gum I gave you ? There, now we’re 
all right. Don’t spare that broom, Hiram ; you 
make it do its full work now, and you’ll have reason 
to be proud of your results. There ! I can listen to 
you with both ears, Polly. What’s on your mind 
this morning ? ” 

“ Oh, you know what it is, Arctura,” said Polly 
reproachfully. “ You’re only pretending. You 
know it’s about our boarder, yours and mine.” 

“ She won’t be mine, I can tell you,” and Arctura’s 
mouth looked very firm. u I won’t own part nor 
parcel of her. But there,” relenting as she looked at 


KEEPS A PROMISE 39 

Polly, “ I’ll do all I can to help you out with her. 
You’ve decided to take her, I judge ? ” 

“ Why, of course ; there wasn’t really any other 
way to decide,” said Polly rather dolefully. “ Do 
you think she’ll be a fearful responsibility for us — for 
me, Arctura ? ” 

“ Everything and everybody in this world’s a re- 
sponsibility to somebody,” responded Arctura crisply. 
“ Look at that moth hole, will you, with all the care 
I take — I declare there’s no end to work ! Why yes, 
I presume she’ll be a good hefty responsibility for 
us, for you, Polly. Better think twice about her, 
while yet there’s time.” 

“ Oh, I should have to take her, even if she were 
a great deal crosser than she probably is,” said Polly. 
“ I was wondering, Arctura, what we could do to 
make her rooms very, very pretty, so she couldn’t 
help loving them, and so she’d like to stay in them 
a great deal. Can you think of anything ? ” 

“You might lend her your sleepy-hollow chair,” 
said Arctura, avoiding Polly’s eyes, while she 
searched for moth holes in a new and flawless robe. 
“ She’d like that to sink into, I guess.” 

Polly gave a little gasp. The sleepy-hollow chair 
was her special favorite, the one in which she curled 
up “ to think things over,” the one with a broad arm 
on which she rested her writing pad Sunday after- 


40 


POLLY PRENTISS 


noons when she wrote her letters to Mary and 
Alicia, Janet and Josephine, and the less frequent, 
“ very particular ” ones to Miss Dorothea, Miss Alma 
or her friend the senator. It really did not seem as 
if she could spare the sleepy-hollow chair for two 
whole months. 

“As I understand the case, she’s a woman that 
values her comfort very high,” Arctura went on, 
still hunting for moth holes. “ And of course there’s 
no chair in those two rooms you’ll give her to com- 
pare with that one of yours. She’d probably take 
naps in it after her meals. I should suppose you’d 
encourage her sleeping as much as she can. She 
won’t be making trouble while she’s asleep, that’s 
certain. But of course it’s for you to do just as you 
like.” 

“ She may have the chair,” said Polly slowly. 
“ And is there anything else of mine, Arctura, you 
think she ought to have ? ” 

“ ’Tisn’t a case of 4 ought,’ so far as I know,” said 
Arctura. “ I don’t think of anything else excepting 
maybe you’d like to exchange mirrors with her. 
Yours is better glass than the one in the west room ; 
that’s got a little blurred someway or other, and I’ve 
tried every way I know to make it clear, and can’t. 
It always had a kind of a wave in one spot, and 
now the blur makes it a little worse than ever. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


41 


’Twouldn’t make any difference to you, of course, 
but she’s most likely given to prinking before a 
glass, and she’d want a clear image.” 

“ She may have my mirror,” said Polly. “ Per- 
haps it will make her feel pleasant to see such a 
pretty one, and I shan’t mind. And I’ll lend her 
my great spreading pink vase that Aunt Hetty gave 
me for flowers, Arctura, and keep fresh ones in it 
for her every day. Do you think of anything else 
I’d better lend her ? ” 

“ Ho, I don’t,” said Arctura shortly. It almost 
seemed as if she were provoked with Polly, but that 
was not true. 

“ I was mad at myself,” she told Miss Hetty later 
on ; “ making that child give up the things she loves 
for an old — boarder ! ” she ended explosively. “ I 
didn’t know but the change of mirrors might be a 
good thing, for it stands to reason Polly can’t help 
seeing how pretty she is, and she might get a mite 
vain, and that would spoil her, though she could 
outgrow it, maybe.” 

“We don’t need to worry about Polly’s vanity 
until she takes more pains with herself, I think,” 
laughed Miss Hetty. “But your idea of the ex- 
change was a wise one, nevertheless, for I can’t im- 
agine any one who would be more intolerant of an 
imperfect mirror than Mrs. Leeds. Are you giving 


42 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Polly a free hand in the arrangement of the furni- 
ture, Arctura ? I’ve promised her I wouldn’t look 
into the rooms until they were ready for their new 
occupant.” 

“ She’s putting everything just the way she thinks 
Mrs. Leeds would like it,” said Arctura. “ There’s 
one chair that’s been in nine different places. Polly 
stands in the doorway and looks at things, and then 
she’ll sa}r, 4 Now, Arctura, will you please go out 
into the hall and come in just as if you were Mrs. 
Leeds, seeing the rooms for the first time, and tell 
me truly just how you feel ? ’ Last off I had to tell 
her the way I felt was too tired to stand on my feet 
another minute. All I hope is that when the woman 
comes she’ll be grateful.” 

“ She won’t,” and Miss Hetty smiled to herself. 
“ Mrs. Leeds is not given to gratitude and at this 
time she wfill see no possible cause for it. She will 
think, as I’ve often heard her say, that she is 4 pay- 
ing for every cent’s worth she gets,’ Arctura. Don’t 
look for gratitude, or you’ll be disappointed, and so 
will Polly.” 

44 She isn’t looking for gratitude, but she’s looking 
for joy,” grumbled Arctura ; 44 and as for me, all I’m 
looking for in connection with this enterprise is care 
and trouble, and I reckon I’ll get enough of both of 
’em ! ” 


CHAPTER Y 


THE BOARDER 

“ W hat is it, Polly ? ” asked Miss Hetty drowsily. 
“ I can see you, perched on the chair at the foot of 
the bed, my dear, but my mind isn’t really awake 
yet. Has anything happened ? ” 

“ Hot yet, Aunt Hetty, but you know this is the 
day Mrs. Leeds comes, and it looks as if it were 
surely going to rain ! ” said Polly anxiously. 

Miss Pomeroy stretched her arms above her head 
and opening her eyes wide, regarded Polly with an 
affectionate but amused smile. 

“ Your voice is almost tragic, my dear,” she mur- 
mured. “ Suppose it should rain, what then ? ” 

“ Oh, Aunt Hetty, you know if it rains Hiram will 
not take the best carriage,” said Polly, moving from 
the chair to throw herself on the floor close to the 
head of the bed. “ He’s just as — as firm about it as 
he can be. He says getting caught in the rain is one 
thing, but starting out in it is another, and he will 
not muddy it up when it is all so clean and shining. 
And you know the old carriage is not half so good- 
43 


44 


POLLY PRENTISS 


looking, and maybe Mrs. Leeds would think we 
weren’t polite to her. I love the old one,” she added 
quickly, “ and I’ve had my very best times in it, but 
of course Mrs. Leeds is different.” 

“ Quite different,” assented Miss Hetty dryly. 
“ Well, Polly, if it rains it will rain, that’s all ; we 
can’t prevent it, but as I am going to the station to 
meet Mrs. Leeds, in spite of her writing me I needn’t 
take the trouble, I will endeavor to explain about the 
carriage, so you need not have that on your mind 
another minute.” 

“ You did think the rooms looked pretty yester- 
day, didn’t you, Aunt Hetty ? ” asked Polly earnestly. 
“ You, didn’t say it just to please me, did you ? I 
wondered about that cushion with the frill. Do 
you think the one with the cord would be any 
better ? ” 

“ Polly,” said Miss Hetty, cupping the little girl’s 
anxious face in her hands, “ I told you exactly what 
I thought about the rooms and everything in them 
yesterday. How I want you to stop worrying, right 
straight away, and run down-stairs and out-of-doors. 
See how the roses are coming on, and the other flow- 
ers ; hunt up the kittens and have a frolic with them, 
and don’t come in the house again until I call you.” 

Polly ran off obediently enough, but as for cany- 
ing out her Aunt Hetty’s wishes to the end, that was 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


45 


quite out of her power, she thought. She wandered 
about in the garden with a cat on each shoulder, and 
talked to them and the flowers, but all the time at 
the back of her mind were the little worrying 
thoughts about the stranger who was coming so 
soon. And when Polly’s face was upturned to the 
sky, she felt two unmistakable splashes of rain on 
her nose. 

“There!” she said disconsolately. “It’s come! 
Oh, dear ! ” 

u I had to sit on the porch, you see, Aunt Hetty,” 
she announced to Miss Pomeroy a few moments later. 
“It is raining quite fast now. Well, at any rate, we 
know the worst, don’t we?” and Polly’s dimples 
came into play for the first time that morning. 

“ I’m glad to see those,” and Miss Pomeroy patted 
the little rosy cheeks. “ I don’t recognize my Polly 
when she is so sober. What did Mrs. Ramsdell say 
when you told her about Mrs. Leeds yesterday, 
Polly?” 

“ She just said ‘ For the love of peace ! ’ ” laughed 
Polly. “ Hot another word, Aunt Hetty, for quite a 
few minutes ; then she said she should call at her 
earliest opportunity. I didn’t know just what to 
say, so I didn’t say anything. But — do you think 
Mrs. Leeds would like to have a call from Mrs. 
Ramsdell, Aunt Hetty ? ” 


46 


POLLY PRENTISS 


44 It might amuse her,” said Miss Pomeroy thought- 
fully. “ I should like to see those two quick-tongued, 
sharp-eyed women together.” 

44 Mrs. Ramsdell wouldn’t like to be amusing,” said 
Polly doubtfully, 44 but perhaps she wouldn’t know 
she was. I didn’t tell them why Mrs. Leeds was 
coming, Aunt Hetty. I did exactly as you thought 
I’d better ; I just said that she was an old friend of 
yours, and her boarding place had been burned, and 
she’d asked if you would take her, and you said you 
would if I would take the care of things. Aunty 
Peebles said, 4 That’s just like Miss Pomeroy, to make 
a home for a poor forlorn woman that’s alone in the 
world ! ’ They never thought for a minute it had 
anything to do with them, Aunt Hetty. I told them 
you had partly persuaded the selectmen to let them 
stay on at Manser Farm if we could find some one 
to look out for them. I don’t believe the money part 
of it would come into their heads, Aunt Hetty. I 
don’t, really.” 

44 1 doubt if it would,” said Miss Hetty thought- 
fully. 44 They have so little to do with money now- 
adays. We’ll do our best to keep them from think- 
ing of it, won’t we, Polly ? ” 

44 Yes, indeed,” said Polly fervently. 44 I’ll be just 
as careful as I can, Aunt Hetty.” 

Two hours later when the rain was descending in 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


4 7 


a soft steady pour from a dull, heavy sky, Polly sat 
on the porch waiting, her cheeks flushed, the cats in 
her lap, squeezed every now and then until they ut- 
tered indignant protests and were remorsefully 
smoothed into good nature again. 

At last came the sounds of hoofs and carriage 
wheels. While they were still quite a distance down 
the road, Polly rose from her chair and stood, a cat 
under each arm. Then hastily she dropped the 
cats and spatted her hands to make them run 
away. 

“ Aunt Hetty can’t remember whether Mrs. Leeds 
likes cats,” she murmured as they disappeared be- 
neath the hammock, “ and it’s best to be on the safe 
side, as Arctura says. Oh, dear, they’re almost 
here ! ” 

A moment later the carriage drove up to the door. 
Hiram, although his mind was supposably all given 
to the horse, cast a sidelong glance at Polly, and 
would have given her a nod of encouragement, but 
Polly’s eyes were fastened on the stranger who sat 
bolt upright beside Miss Pomeroy, with a pair of 
glasses, such as Polly had never seen before, held a 
little away from her face by a long tortoise shell 
handle. Through these glasses she was surveying 
the little girl as the carriage stopped. 

“ So that is your venture,” she said, and shut the 


48 


POLLY PRENTISS 


glasses together in some mysterious way with a 
sharp click, allowing the tortoise-shell handle which 
Polly saw was attached to a chain to slip into its ac- 
customed place in her belt. “ How do you do, 
child ? ” she said in a voice which Polly afterward 
described to Arctura as “ stiff.” 

It was indeed stiff, as if its owner had never 
allowed it to learn gentleness or sympathy. In spite 
of the cold eyes which showed clearly now, and the 
long, unsmiling face, Polly had a sudden feeling of 
pity for Mrs. Leeds, of whom she had stood in fear 
only a moment before. She stepped close to the 
carriage and held out her hand. 

“ Mayn’t I help you out, Mrs. Leeds,” she asked, 
“ the way Aunt Hetty lets me help her because there 
is a little too much space between the carriage and 
the porch-steps, and she doesn’t like to jump the 
way I do. And I’m very well, thank you,” added 
Polly, remembering she had not answered the ques- 
tion put to her. 

Mrs. Leeds stared at her, gave a short laugh 
(“ and that was stiff, too,” Polly confided to Arctura), 
and then actually held out a black-gloved hand which 
Polly grasped and held firmly while the short but 
precarious passage was in progress. 

“ Why in the world haven’t you had a step made 
at the proper height ? ” inquired Mrs. Leeds when 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


49 


Miss Pomeroy was beside her on the porch. “ Or is 
it only this particular carriage that causes trouble ? 
Is this your newest purchase, Hester ? ” 

“Oh, no,” said Miss Pomeroy, pleasantly, al- 
though Polly’s cheeks tingled. “ Hiram thinks this 
is best for stormy weather, that’s all. The step is in 
a different place from the others ; it is an old car- 
riage, as you say.” 

“ Hiram ! ” echoed Mrs. Leeds, as the object of her 
remarks drove off toward the barn. “Well, I’d like 
to know, Hester, if after having been a slave to your 
father all your early years, you are foolish enough to 
let another man, and a hired man at that, rule you 
now you’re getting toward old age ? You aren’t 
going into your dotage already, I hope.” 

Miss Pomeroy laughed, but Polly was indignant. 
Dotage was a word the meaning of which she had 
been called upon to look up one day at school, and 
she had received a very unpleasant impression of it. 
How, without warning, Polly’s head took its inde- 
pendent tilt. 

“ My Aunt Hetty isn’t anywhere near her dotage,” 
she said breathlessly, “ not anywhere near ! ” 

From its position at Mrs. Leeds’ belt the tortoise- 
shell handle was lifted, there was a little click, and 
once again the cold eyes looked at Polly through the 
large round glasses. 


50 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ Indeed ! ” said Mrs. Leeds, and spoke no other 
word to Polly, but turning to Miss Pomeroy she 
added, “ You seem to have a champion and defender 
here. Does she always enter into conversation 
whether it is addressed to her or not ? ” 

Polly’s cheeks burned, but her Aunt Hetty’s arm 
went around her with a light, comforting touch. 

“ Polly is prejudiced in my favor,” she said easily. 
“ I’m afraid you may have to be a little careful how 
you criticize me before her, Maria. Save your 
criticisms until we are alone, and I’ll promise you to 
digest them. But as for Hiram, he rules in his own 
domain, and I am happy to have him. As we grow 
older we are glad to shift care and responsibility 
whenever we can. How let us get in where the fire 
will dry that coat of yours that got wet at the 
Junction.” 

“ Miserable place to change cars,” said Mrs. Leeds 
as she followed Miss Pomeroy into the parlor. 
“ Across those tracks, with no shelter. I wonder the 
patrons of your branch endure such an imposition. 
Where is that child taking my bag ? ” 

“ Up to your room,” said Miss Pomeroy ; “ now do 
sit down, Maria, and allow yourself a few minutes’ 
rest before you mount the stairs, which you know 
you don’t like.” 

“ I thought you might be able to give me a couple 


KEEPS A PROMISE 5 1 

of rooms on the first floor,” said Mrs. Leeds crisply. 
“ I take it you decided you couldn’t.” 

“ You’ve evidently forgotten the house, Maria,” 
said Miss Hetty. “ This room, which is parlor and 
library in one, takes this side of the house, the din- 
ing-room takes the other and the kitchen is down 
the hall ; there has never been a bedroom on this 
floor.” 

“ I don’t suppose you would ever feel safe to sleep 
down here, in any case,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ A lonely 
spot like this, anything might happen to you, and 
nobody would be the wiser.” 

“ Why, we never think of it as lonely,” said Miss 
Pomeroy, honestly amazed. “Our nearest neighbor 
is not more than a quarter of a mile away, and there 
are never any tramps or suspicious persons about. 
And Hiram and Arctura, with the telephone, are 
sufficient protection for a much more timid woman 
than I am.” 

“Well, I can’t say that I should have any special 
fear at this time of year,” admitted Mrs. Leeds, “ but 
in the winter you should close the house and go to 
the city. If you would hire a good large apartment 
I’m not sure that I wouldn’t board with you. That 
child would be at school, of course. You could take 
your woman — what’s her name ? Arctura ? I never 
heard anything so foolish ! — You could take her 


52 


POLLY PRENTISS 


with you, and leave the man here, perhaps. We 
must talk that over later.” 

Miss Hetty, who was accustomed to guide and 
arrange her own affairs with a wise and steady hand, 
was divided between amusement and irritation. 
Fortunately her sense of humor conquered in the 
end, and she was able to laugh over her old friend’s 
plans for her. 

“We should never get along, shut up in the house 
together, Maria,” she said carelessly. “We’re both 
much too fond of our own way.” 

“ You were always stubborn as a mule, I remember 
that distinctly,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ Except where 
your father was concerned, I never knew you to give 
in to anybody, although you were foolishly obedient 
to him. I’ve never been stubborn, but I’ve always 
been gifted with clear sight and excellent judgment ; 
others haven’t profited by it as much as they might, 
but that isn’t my fault. Where’s that Polly of yours ? 
Do you suppose she’s opening my bag ? ” 

“ Ho,” said Miss Pomeroy sharply. “ She 
wouldn’t open a bag that belonged to another person 
any more than — than you would, Maria ! ” 

“ I’m not sure but I might, some time, if it seemed 
best,” said Mrs. Leeds calmly. “ At any rate I’d like 
to go up to my room now and open my own. And 
I should think it was high time that lazy expressman, 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


53 


who hadn’t another thing to do, brought my trunks. 
Can’t I find the way by myself ? I’d like to step up 
quickly, and see what that child is doing.” 

“ Go right up the stairs, and turn to your left,” 
said Miss Hetty. “ The door of your sitting-room will 
be open, and you will probably see Polly there, 
waiting for you. She has done her best to make the 
rooms pretty for you. Try to remember that, even 
if they don’t please you.” 

“ I should really think, if I didn’t know it was 
absurd, that Hester considered me lacking in good 
manners,” said Mrs. Leeds to herself as she stepped 
lightly up the stairs. “ Although, of course, there is 
no earthly reason why I shouldn’t speak my mind 
plainly to that child if I don’t like the arrangements 
she has made. Naturally her feelings can’t be very 
sensitive, brought up as she was. The whole plan 
of my being her boarder is ridiculous, of course — well, 
I’m not obliged to stay if the experiment isn’t satis- 
factory. Oh, is this my sitting-room ? ” 

“ Yes’m,” said Polly eagerly, “and I do hope 
you’ll like it, Mrs. Leeds. That chair in the 
window is very comfortable ; won’t you try it, please ? 
And we thought, Arctura and I did, that probably, 
or at any rate perhaps, you’d rather have the big 
vase of roses by itself over on the light-stand — it’s 
strong and steady, though its legs are so slender — 


54 


POLLY PRENTISS 


and have the table free for your books and station- 
ery. You see there’s a bottle of ink and a calendar 
blotter, so you can tell just what day it is.” 

“ That’s very good,” said Mrs. Leeds, scrutinizing 
the room through her glasses, and turning them at 
last on Polly. “ I dislike a cluttered table above 
everything. And I may as well say now, at the 
start, child, that I do not care for flowers in my 
room.” 

Polly ran to the light-stand and seized the big 
vase, lifting it and holding it in both arms with the 
roses close to her flushed cheeks. 

“ I’ll take it right away to my room,” she said, 
bearing the vase past Mrs. Leeds and out of the 
door. “ And I’m so glad to have you, yon darlings ! ” 
she whispered to the roses as she crossed her own 
threshold. “But oh, dear, what can she be like 
not to want you ! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


TROUBLE 

“Will you please tell me how to pronounce 
it again, Aunt Hetty ? ” asked Polly softly. 
“L-o-r-g-n, lorn, e-t-t-e, yet, lorn-yet. I think I’ll 
remember it exactly now, but oh, Aunt Hetty, do 
you think it is a very polite kind of glass to look at 
people through, when they are quite close to you ? 
It makes me feel all hot, and as if I were some 
kind of a — a beetle she was examining.” 

“ You must get used to it, Polly,” laughed Miss 
Pomeroy. It was dusk and the little girl was sit- 
ting on the arm of a big chair, her cheek close 
against her aunt’s, having a confidential talk. “ Mrs. 
Leeds has carried it for so long a time, this one and 
others like it, that she probably has not the least 
idea of the way it sometimes affects people.” 

“ You don’t like it yourself,” said Polly, with a 
satisfied nod, as she slipped from the arm of the 
chair and began to dance softty around the room, the 
thumbs and forefingers of her little hands forming 
two small circles which she held down toward the 
55 


56 


POLLY PRENTISS 


end of her nose, her eyes being tightly squinted as 
if to look through this improvised lorgnette.. “ And 
what do you suppose Josephine and Francis would 
say if they saw Mrs. Leeds looking at them, Aunt 
Hetty?” 

“ I hardly dare think,” said Miss Pomeroy and 
then she and Polly laughed together, but softly, for 
they heard firm footsteps on the stairs. 

Polly stopped dancing and was seated demurely 
looking out of the window when the door opened, 
and Mrs. Leeds entered the room. 

“The evening is closing in so early, owing to this 
rain,” she announced, “ that I thought I would come 
down here with my book, and so save lighting the 
lamp in my room until later. But you appear to be 
enjoying the dark, so I will go up-stairs again.” 

“ Ho indeed,” said Miss Pomeroy quickly. “ Polly 
and I had been talking and we didn’t realize that 
the darkness had come. Light the lamps, Polly, and 
then we shall forget there is such a thing as rain.” 

“ There is a small spot on the ceiling of my bed- 
room which should be looked after as soon as the 
rain is over,” stated Mrs. Leeds. “ Nothing is more 
unwholesome than dampness of that sort. Probably 
your roof needs shingling, Hester. The spot will 
spread and make trouble.” 

Arctura, who entered the room at that moment 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


5 7 


with the large reading lamp freshly filled and 
trimmed, set it down on the table with such energy 
that the porcelain shade rattled against the chim- 
ney. 

“ That little spot’s just the same size it’s been for 
twenty years, no bigger and no smaller,” she said, 
addressing the lamp shade resentfully. “ I should 
think anybody that looked at it carefully, through 
glasses ,” with great emphasis, “ could have seen that 
5 1 wasn’t damp, anyway. It’s some trouble with the 
ceiling itself, and there’ve been quarts o’ whitewash 
put on it, but it works through just the same. It’s 
in such an out-o’-the-way corner that nobody would 
spy it anyhow without they were just looking for 
flaws, seems if.” Arctura added the last words in a 
somewhat milder tone as she caught a reproving 
glance from Miss Pomeroy, and marched out of the 
room without allowing her eyes to stray to Mrs. 
Leeds. 

She was fully aware, however, that the object of 
her indignation was staring at her curiously through 
the hated lorgnette, and she burst into the kitchen, 
startling Hiram, who was deep in the pages of a 
new agricultural magazine. 

“ Old Killjoy ! ” cried Arctura, and the sound 
with which the door closed behind her could not 
possibly have been called anything less than a slam. 


58 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“Fuss, fuss, fuss! that’s what she’s going to do 
every day and every minute she’s in this house. It 
doesn’t take half an eye to see what she is ! A nice 
summer we’re going to have with her in the house ! ” 

“ Well, now, ’Tura, she may not be quite so bad 
as you seem to think.” Hiram spoke with the vain 
hope of pacifying his sister, but her only reply was 
a glance of withering scorn and a snort of contempt 
such as was seldom awarded him even for what 
Arctura considered “ pure foolishness.” 

“ But she’ll find out there’s one person in this 
house that won’t give way before her,” continued 
Arctura, seizing her knitting needles and making 
them click with such rapidity that the red mitten on 
which she was at work whisked about as if it were 
the center of a small whirlwind. “ Let her try any 
of her tricks with me, and she’ll see ! Let her set 
foot in this kitchen, and she won’t be left in any 
doubt ! Interfering old thing ! ” 

“ She isn’t so very old,” ventured Hiram, daring 
another glance of scorn. “ She isn’t many years 
older than Miss Hetty, and we don’t consider age 
has taken any great hold of her yet, now do we ? 
You try and be a mite reasonable, ’Tura.” 

“ You do try me so I can hardly keep my temper,” 
said Arctura. “Don’t you know folks can be old 
things before they’re thirty, if they’re made that 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


59 


way ? Haven’t you any recollection of that young 
woman who taught Number Three the first winter 
you and I went there ? Well, she was only twenty- 
eight, but what one of us children ever called her 
anything else but 4 old Miss Hanson’? ’Tisn’t 
years; it’s a selfish mind and a hard heart that 
makes folks old. Don’t talk to me ! ” 

“ Sorrow does it too,” persisted Hiram ; “ and you 
know Miss Hetty says this woman’s had trouble.” 

“ The most of it she’s brought on herself,” said 
Arctura with decision. “ I know that by looking at 
her. Now see here, you can’t smooth me down, 
Hiram. You go back to your early turnips or what- 
ever ’tis you’re reading about, and let me work off 
my steam on this mitten. I’ve come to the place 
where I have to count the stitches, anyway, and I 
can’t be bothered with you.” 

She vouchsafed him a grim smile as a finish to 
her words, and Hiram left her to her thoughts and 
her knitting, knowing that she would win her way 
to peace in time. 

It was nearly nine o’clock when the kitchen door 
opened and Polly entered softly, closing the door 
behind her. Polly’s candle was in her hand and 
she was evidently on her way to bed. 

“ Hiram,” Polly’s voice had a note of anxiety as 
she walked over to the table and sat down in the 


6o 


POLLY PRENTISS 


little splint rocker which had come to be regarded 
as hers, “ Hiram, do you suppose there is any way 
we could keep that little rooster from crowing 
before daylight ? ” 

“ There’s just one way,” said Hiram, looking 
affectionately at her, as he laid down his paper; 
“that’s the way that would stop his crowing any 
time, early or late. He’s a forth-putting little crit- 
ter, and he’s got the idea into his head that he’s the 
one to crow the sun up mornings, and you couldn’t 
persuade him any different, not if you were to give 
up your whole time to it. What’s been said about 
him ? ” 

“Nothing,” said Polly; “but I just thought of 
him when Mrs. Leeds said she was very dependent 
on unbroken sleep, and that if anything waked her 
up she seldom or never closed her eyes again. And 
I remembered that rooster had even waked me up 
two or three times, and nobody could sleep any 
harder than I do ! But of course I can close my 
eyes right off.” 

“ Fiddlesticks ! Her and her wide-open eyes ! ” 
said Arctura before Hiram had a chance to speak. 
“ She can close her ey&s if she wants to, and if she 
prefers to keep ’em open, let her, that’s all ! ” 

“ But, Arctura, you know she’s our — my boarder,” 
said Polly, turning troubled eyes toward the good 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


6l 


woman who had helped her so many times, but 
whose spirit now seemed alien to her enterprise. 
“ Of course I have to make her as comfortable as I 
can; Aunt Hetty told me that before Mrs. Leeds 
came.” 

“ People think altogether too much of their com- 
fort nowadays,” said Arctura firmly. “Supposing 
they aren’t comfortable ; what then ? Do you sup- 
pose our Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers were com- 
fortable ? Hot they, but they went right along 
and founded this land we’re living in. How, I don’t 
hold with food at bedtime, but a good hunk of 
gingerbread is what you need right now, and you’re 
going to have it.” 

“ But, Arctura, suppose she says she can’t stay if 
her sleep is broken, destroyed, that’s the word she 
used,” said Polly, still anxious, although much 
cheered by the generous piece of gingerbread pre- 
sented her on Arctura’s return from the pantry. 
“ Suppose she goes off ? ” 

Arctura’s hand rested on Polly’s shoulder and 
patted it. 

“ Don’t you worry about that,” she argued 
shrewdly. “That woman has come to stay till 
her time’s up. All she wants is to make sure we’ll 
give in to her at every turn. I’m going to have 
griddle-cakes for breakfast. You know what my 


62 


POLLY PRENTISS 


griddle-cakes are, Polly, if I do say it. Cooking’s 
my one real accomplishment that I can take pride 
in. Won’t they make her forget she was waked up 
before daybreak ? Provided she was,” added Arc- 
tura darkly. “ If I’m not mistaken she’s a mite 
deaf in her left ear, and if she sleeps with that one 
up, — as she probably does, being so hygienic as I 
understand she is, and knowing so much about the 
best way to do everything — it’s possible that little 
rooster may not do more’n just work into her 
dreams. I wonder what a woman like her would 
dream about, to be sure.” 

“ I think perhaps she’ll dream about old times to- 
night,” said Polly, rising as the kitchen clock gave 
nine brisk though wheezy strokes. “ She and Aunt 
Hetty have been talking about their school days. 
They remember such different things about people 
— it’s as queer as queer can be to listen to them. 
Aunt Hetty remembers what they looked like and 
said, and the funny things they did, and Mrs. Leeds 
remembers the clothes they wore and how much 
money their fathers and mothers had, and whether 
they were good scholars, ’specially in arithmetic. I 
hope she won’t ever ask me about arithmetic ! ” 

“ I should suppose those would be things she’d re- 
member,” and Arctura nodded with the air of one 
whose opinion has been fully confirmed. “ And if 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


63 


she asks you anything about your studies, especially 

arithmetic, you tell her Well, I guess I’d better 

not say what I was going to, for it wouldn’t be very 
polite, and I don’t feel sure ’t would be wise. You’ll 
tell her the truth, I know, and if she makes any re- 
marks on it, you can say your folks are real pleased 
with your school work, that is if you think best, and 
count Hiram and me as part of your folks, same as 
you always seem to,” she ended with a half appeal- 
ing glance at Polly. 

“ You know I do,” and a warm good-night kiss 
was pressed on Arctura’s cheek. “ And when she’s 
eaten your griddle-cakes to-morrow morning, she’ll 
wish you were her ‘ own folks,’ too ; I know she 
will.” 

When Polly had gone, Arctura moved chairs and 
stepped about the kitchen doing unnecessary things, 
waiting for Hiram to speak. At last she stopped 
close to him, and drew the paper from his hands. 

“ Well, what now, ’Tura ? ” he asked smiling up at 
her. 

“ I was thinking,” Arctura looked shamefacedly 
away from him, “ do you suppose there’s any place 
we could put that rooster, just for to-night, where 
he’d be just a mite muffled ? How you needn’t 
laugh, Hiram ! It isn’t that I’d care if that woman 
was waked up and never closed her eyes again — but 


64 


POLLY PRENTISS 


I can’t have Polly worried about those Manser Farm 
folks, now I can’t, you know that ! ” 

“ What we all need is sleep, every one of us,” said 
Hiram. “ We’ve had a kind of an exciting day, and 
we’ve been hived up in the house too much, some of us, 
and we’re getting notional. As for me, I don’t know 
whether it’s turnips or cauliflower I’ve been reading 
about for the last ten minutes ; my mind’s all of a sog 
trying to take in ideas with the mercury where I’ll 
wager ’tis in this kitchen. The wind has slewed 
round into the south, I know, and it’ll be a fine, 
warm day to-morrow. Let’s take a look at the Dip- 
per together, Arctura, same as we used to in our boy 
and girl days, last thing at night.” 

“ I don’t believe there’s a star out,” grumbled 
Arctura, but half laughing she allowed her brother to 
lead her out of the kitchen, and throw open the door 
which led out to the yard. Together they stepped 
out on to the old “ door-rock ” and stood there. 

The rain had ceased, and through the scudding 
clouds the stars shone out, faint but undeniable. 
They drew in long breaths of the soft air, and with 
heads uplifted, searched the sky. 

“ There’s the handle of it,” said Hiram softly, 
“ and there comes the rest of it. See, ’Tura ? ” 

“ Y es, I see,” and Arctura spoke gently. “ They’re 
so steady, it doesn’t seem as if we need worry much 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


65 


about little things, after all. I guess I’ll step right 
along to bed, Hiram. It’ll be a good night to sleep, 
and I have to be up pretty early to-morrow. Don’t 
you give any more thought to that rooster.” 

“ Ho, I won’t,” promised Hiram, and when his 
sister had gone he smiled up at the sky. “ How 
wouldn’t anybody think, to hear that, ’twas all my 
worry,” he said with a little chuckle. “ I reckon 
it’ll take more than an upstart rooster and a spleeny 
boarder to keep me awake ! ” 


CHAPTER V II 


POLLY LEARNING HOW 

The first words uttered by Mrs. Leeds next morn- 
ing, after a perfunctory return of the greetings given 
her by Miss Pomeroy and Polly, dispelled any hopes 
that she had failed to hear the early clarion call 
from the barn-yard. But to Polly’s joy she dis- 
covered that while her Aunt Hetty disclaimed all 
rights in Mrs. Leeds as a boarder she nevertheless 
intended to do her part toward making things run 
smoothly. 

“ Impertinent cock ! ” she said with a laugh, 
echoing the words of her old school friend ; “ why 
yes, that’s just what he is, Maria. But if you treat 
him with scorn, as I’m sure you treat other things 
you regard as impertinent, and turn over and go 
to sleep, you will soon rise superior to him.” 

“ It is very evident that you have no nerves,” said 
Mrs. Leeds, taking an exhaustive survey of Miss 
Hetty through her lorgnette. “ Ho w do you manage 
to keep such a color at your age ? ” 

“ For pity’s sake,” laughed Miss Hetty, “ why 
shouldn’t I keep the color the Lord and healthy liv- 
66 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


67 


ing have given me ? I’m not a hundred, Maria, or 
even ninety. But I’ll tell you what will give me 
nerves: if you keep looking at me through that 
lorgnette of yours you’ll make me as nervous as a 
witch. We aren’t used to such things at Pomeroy 
Oaks. And if you carried those glasses to church and 
looked at our young minister through them I’m not 
sure but he’d forget his text. Haven’t you a good 
every-day pair that will rest on your nose ? ” 

“ I have a pair in my trunk,” admitted Mrs. Leeds, 
“ but I never wear them outside my room. They 
are not becoming. You are a very blunt and out- 
spoken person, Hester, just as you always used to be. 
A woman with a less even temper than mine might 
have taken offense at such plain speech, but I con- 
sider the source.” 

It was evident to Polly that they had both for- 
gotten her. For a moment she wished she might 
slide under the table or vanish in some other way, 
but as Arctura came in, bearing a tray on which 
were three covered plates and a pitcher of syrup, 
Polly plucked up her spirits and looked hopefully at 
the guest. 

“ Griddle-cakes ! Why, that’s very nice, Arctura,” 
said Miss Pomeroy. 

Arctura stood waiting with her tray at Mrs. 
Leeds’ elbow. She waited with head well thrown 


68 


POLLY PRENTISS 


back while Mrs. Leeds lifted her steaming plate from 
the tray, with no word. Then Arctura spoke. 

“ Good-morning to you, ma’am,” she said in a tone 
of challenge, and the guest perforce looked up. 

“I said good-morning to you, ma’am,” repeated 
Arctura. “ I noticed yesterday you were a mite 
deaf. Good-morning.” 

“ Good-morning,” came in a chill tone from be- 
tween the thin lips, and as Arctura left the room 
Mrs. Leeds gazed after her as if she were some 
strange animal. “ What a very extraordinary serv- 
ant you have, Hester,” she said loud enough for 
Arctura to catch every word. “ Does she often for- 
get herself so with strangers? Has she never 
learned her place ? ” 

“ Her place,” said Miss Pomeroy, and her tone 
was, by intention, as loud as that of her old school- 
mate, “her place in this household is so important 
that I should find it hard to describe.” 

Out in the hall Arctura heard, and her flushed 
cheeks cooled. 

“ I might’ve known Miss Hetty’d ’tend to her,” 
she muttered as she marched on to the kitchen. “ Of 
course I know ’twasn’t just the thing for me to speak 
up that way to Mrs. Leeds, but it didn’t seem as if 
I could put up with her high and mighty air of not 
seeing me or realizing that ’twas a human being 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


69 


handing her food to her, not some kind of a dummy. 
I call it she has heathen manners, that woman, and 
I don’t know but I misjudge the heathen at that ! ” 

“ You must realize, my dear Maria,” Miss Hetty 
was saying, with Arctura well out of ear-shot, “ that 
she has been in our family for many years ; I never 
think of her as a servant, but she does know her 
place, if by that you mean that she realizes the cir- 
cumstances of her life and education have not fitted 
her for the parlor — although I have never had any 
one in my parlor who has entertained me better on oc- 
casion than Arctura. You must take her as you find 
her ; she cannot be made over, even if one wished 
to make her over, which I am far from wishing.” 

Mrs. Leeds sat with uplifted eyebrows, making no 
reply, but Polly, eagerly watching, saw that the little 
pile of griddle-cakes was fast diminishing. 

“ And I think she likes good things to eat, if she 
did say she had a very delicate appetite,” commented 
Polly in her own mind. “Maybe when Arctura 
brings in the next set Mrs. Leeds will tell her how 
good they are.” 

Polly was doomed to disappointment in that re- 
spect, for Mrs. Leeds accepted her second steaming 
plateful with only a nod of thanks, but Arctura was 
nevertheless mollified by the implied compliment of 
the empty plate, Polly could see that. If there was 


70 


POLLY PRENTISS 


one thing more than another that tried Arctura it 
was to have people fail to relish the food she took 
delight in preparing. 

“ She enjoyed every mouthful, Arctura,” said 
Polly later in the morning. “ I knew by the way 
she ate. Now I’m going up to make her bed, 
Arctura. She said it must air two hours, and then 
she would show me just how she likes it made. And 
after that I am to read to her a little while, I think.” 

“ Umph ! ” said Arctura. “ Has she hired you for 
a chambermaid and secretary as well as all the other 
things she’s getting for her money ? You’d better 
let me ’tend to making her bed. We’ll see how 
many instructions she’ll give me” 

“ Oh, no, Arctura, I’ll make it,” cried Polly. “ It 
will be splendid practice for me, Aunt Hetty says, 
because I’m not so very particular about my own 
bed always, and sometimes the sheet is a little 
crooked, and the pillows are not plumped exactly 
even. Everything will be very particular for her, 
you see. Aunt Hetty and I have just had a lovely 
walk in the garden and I’ve read her letters to her, 
to save her eyes, although they hardly need saving 
a bit now, she says. Arctura, I think maybe we’ll 
have a lovely summer after all.” 

“ Time will tell,” replied Arctura briefly. “ I’m go- 
ing to give you lamb stew with dumplings for dinner.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


71 


“ Did they teach you how to make beds at that 
place where you were brought up, or has Miss Pome- 
roy taught you ? ” asked Mrs. Leeds when at the ap- 
pointed time Polly in her best pink gingham apron 
presented herself as chambermaid. 

“ They didn’t let me make beds at Manser Farm,” 
said Polly, “ because they all liked to make their 
own, and they thought I was pretty small.” 

“ 4 Small ! ’ What has size to do with it ? ” in- 
quired Mrs. Leeds sharply. “You were strong 
enough to turn a mattress and shake up a pillow, I 
suppose. It’s strength and intelligence that are 
necessary for good bed-making, not size. Then it’s 
Miss Pomeroy who has taught you ? ” 

“JSTo, Mrs. Leeds, it was Arctura,” said Polly, 
“ and if I don’t do it the very best way it won’t be 
her fault, because she took a great deal of pains with 
me ; but it seems as if there were some things I 
never could learn to do very well.” 

“ What are the things you consider you do best ? ” 
asked Mrs. Leeds, and although no one could have 
been less suspicious than Polly she could not help 
feeling as if her boarder had set a trap for her, and 
set it with enjoyment. 

She stood perfectly still for a moment, the color 
deepening in her cheeks. When she spoke it was 
slowly. 


7 2 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ I can’t think of anything I do very well,” she 
said, her honest eyes on Mrs. Leeds. “I’m not 
quick about my studies, and I’m not always 
sure things will come out right when I cook, 
and I’m not particular enough for a born house- 
keeper, Arctura says. I — I can ’most always make 
things grow,” she offered in an apologetic tone. 

“ Make them grow ! ” repeated Mrs. Leeds. “ What 
do you mean by that, child ? ” 

“ Out-of-doors, in the ground,” said Polly ; “ flow- 
ers and plants, I mean. And I’m pretty good about 
helping nurse people, Aunt Hetty thinks, but per- 
haps she’s prejudiced in my favor.” 

“Very likely,” said Mrs. Leeds dryly. “Well, 
suppose you turn that mattress. Don’t let it thump 
down on the springs; pull it into place gently. 
There ! How put on the lower sheet and let me see 
if you can draw it smooth and tight, so there won’t 
be a single wrinkle, and tuck it in properly at the 
head and foot and sides.” 

It was half an hour before that bed was made to 
the satisfaction of Mrs. Leeds. Polly tucked and 
untucked, stretched, pulled, patted and shook until 
her arms were tired, but she said never a word until 
at last with an air of regret Mrs. Leeds admitted that 
the bed was satisfactory. 

“Now, when you’ve finished dusting you may 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


7 3 


come to me in the sitting-room. I’d like you to read 
to me for a while,” said Mrs. Leeds authoritatively. 
“ Your — Miss Pomeroy said she could spare you.” 

“ Oh, yes’m,” said Polly. “ I’ll run to my room 
and bring my new duster that Josephine Olsen made 
for me.” 

“ I prefer to have you use these dust-cloths which 
I brought,” said Mrs. Leeds, handing Polly a black 
package. u There are two cloths, and you will use 
one for two days, then wash it under my directions, 
and while it is being thoroughly aired, use the other. 
The ordinary dust-cloth carries germs from place to 
place and person to person, and is a menace to any 
household. I have brought some extra ones as a gift 
to Miss Pomeroy, for I felt sure she would not have 
the proper kind.” 

Polly swallowed, but said nothing. The thought 
of using these coarse black cloths in place of the soft 
old silk and linen pieces with which the house was 
plentifully supplied did not please her, and she felt 
sure that Arctura would be cross about it. She took 
the duster, however, and began her work. Mrs. 
Leeds watched her curiously for a moment and then 
went into her sitting-room, leaving Polly to her own 
devices. 

“ I truly believe,” said Polly to herself, vigorously 
polishing the legs of the table, “ that if she told me 


74 


POLLY PRENTISS 


the very best way in the world to do things, and I 
knew it was the very best way, I’d rather do some- 
thing else ! That’s the way she makes me feel. But 
I mustn’t” she told herself a moment later, as she 
began to dust the silver toilet articles spread on the 
bureau, “ because that’s what Robert calls being 
silly ; and, besides, if I lose my temper she’ll go 
away and that will be the end of my Manser Farm 
plans. Pooh! I guess people have had boarders 
ten times as hard to get along with as Mrs. Leeds is. 
Maybe twenty times as hard,” and Polly began to 
hum a cheerful little tune as she plied the dust- 
cloth. 

“ Don’t make that noise,” came from the adjoining 
room. “ If there is one thing more distracting than 
another to a person who is reading, it is a sound of 
incessant humming.” 

“Yes’m,” said Polly. “I didn’t know I was 
doing it.” 

“ That’s the invariable excuse of persons who hum,” 
commented Mrs. Leeds. “ Haven’t you finished 
dusting that room ? ” 

The half hour that Polly spent in reading to her 
boarder was fully as hard as the time she had spent 
in making the bed. 

“ Don’t pitch your voice so high,” Mrs. Leeds had 
commanded when Polly began to read. “The neu- 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


7 5 


ralgia which is my reason for wishing to save my 
eyes from the strain of much reading makes my nerves 
especially sensitive. Pitch your voice as low as pos- 
sible.” 

“ Yes’m,” said Polly, and she proceeded with as 
low a tone as her clear young voice could produce. 

“Don’t mumble so,” Mrs. Leeds interrupted her 
sharply. “ Just because your voice is pitched low 
don’t run the words together so that I have to guess 
at them. Begin that last sentence again.” 

It was a rebellious little girl who flew down the 
stairs and out-of-doors when at last Mrs. Leeds an- 
nounced that the reading was over. Polly’s heart 
was hot with indignation, and she longed to un- 
burden it to some one. 

“But Arctura doesn’t like her, anyway,” she 
thought as she hurried along toward her favorite 
seat in the garden. “ And if I tell Aunt Hetty, 
she’ll think to herself, 4 This is only the second 
day, and Polly is complaining already.’ Oh, you 
dear lilies-of-the- valley, how cool you look ! I wish I 
felt the way you do ! But I don’t ! I’m all 
scratched the wrong way inside. Oh, dear ! ” 

Polly stopped short and gave herself a little 
shake. 

“It is silly to mind, just as Robert says,” she 
scolded herself. “ Here’s all outdoors as lovely as 


;6 


POLLY PRENTISS 


ever, and dear Aunt Hetty and everything. What 
difference does it make if I do have a little unpleas- 
ant time in the mornings ? If Alicia were here she 
would tell me to 4 live on a high plane of thought ’ 
all the time Mrs. Leeds is here. That’s what 
Alicia’s mother does when the maids leave without 
giving notice, and Alicia says sometimes her mother 
is on such a high plane she forgets all about meals. 
I don’t suppose I could ever get as high as that — but 
then Alicia can’t either, she says, not quite so high. 
And Arctura wouldn’t like it if I did.” 

Polly stood there, looking down at the lilies-of- 
the-valley and reasoning with herself until Hiram 
on his way to the vegetable garden caught sight of 
her and waved his arm. 

“Want to come see how our early peas are get- 
ting on ? ” he called. “ Fourth o’ July will be here 
before we know it, and I expect you want your 
family and boarder to have just the same as they 
could get at one of these high-priced hotels. I under- 
stand your boarder’s paying quite a fancy price for 
her accommodations and food,” he added as Polly 
joined him, and he gave a sidewise glance at her 
face. “ Of course we’ve got to give her the best of 
everything, so we’ll feel our part of the bargain is 
fair and aboveboard. I suppose you and she are get- 
ting real friendly by this time. Arctura tells me she 


KEEPS A PROMISE 77 

chose to have you help round in her room and so 
on, rather than anybody else.” 

“ I don’t know as we’re so very friendly yet, 
Hiram,” said Polly after a moment’s hesitation. 
“She doesn’t care much for people till they’re 
grown up.” 

“ Then she loves ’em all dearly ? ” queried Hiram. 
“ Well, little girl, you’ll grow up in time. I’ll men- 
tion that to her, if opportunity offers. You’ve done 
considerable at it in the last year or two. I wouldn’t 
worry about that ; growing up is one thing we’re 
sure to do whether we want to or not. I’ve got a 
birthday coming before long and it’s lying kind of 
heavy on my chest already. What do you say to 
throwing dull care away, according to the poet’s 
advice, and giving all our minds to the vegetable 
garden for a while ? ” 

“ I think it’s a splendid idea,” laughed Polly, “ and 
then afterward, Hiram, I want to ask your advice 
on a very important matter.” 

“ Such advice as I have in stock is yours to com- 
mand,” said Hiram soberly, “ but you must bear in 
mind that Arctura doesn’t consider it worth as much 
as it might be. Still, I don’t know as a sister’s the 
best judge. I don’t know as she’s any judge at all, 
come right down to it. How you cast your eye on 
those pea vines, Polly.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE GYPSIES 

Long afterward, when that summer was far in 
the past, Polly was able to laugh over many of its 
happenings, but at the time it was a serious matter 
to her. Each day brought its responsibilities and 
trials, and there were some nights when Polly had 
gone to bed that Miss Pomeroy and the faithful 
Arctura held long consultations out on the vine- 
covered porch. 

“ She sleeps like a top,” Arctura said at one of 
these conferences, “so I don’t see as we’ve really 
any cause to worry. But what w T ould you say to 
having Robert come for a little visit? Just over a 
Saturday and Sunday, maybe. It did seem as if 
that woman was more cantankerous last Sunday 
than any other day since she’s been here, and I kind 
of dread the next one. Only ten days she’s been 
with us, and it certainly seems to me as if she’d al- 
ways been here. I presume she despises boys, so if 
Robert came here for three or four days ’twould 
give her something new to think about and fuss over, 
and take her mind off Polly. She picks on that 
child every chance she gets.” 

78 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


79 


“ Polly hasn’t said one word to me about it,” said 
Miss Hester. “ Of course I hear some of the things 
Mrs. Leeds says, myself, but I pretend not to pay 
any attention to them.” 

“ She wouldn’t make any complaints, not unless 
she was driven to it,” said Arctura. “ But I can tell 
you the way she marks off every day that’s gone on 
her calendar with her red pencil tells me how she 
feels. And yet, if that woman would show the least 
bit of warmth, Polly’s so soft-hearted she’d begin to 
like her right off. That child can’t bear not liking 
people and having them like her. Should you want 
me to write Robert, to save your eyes, and tell him 
it’s a surprise for Polly, or would you rather do it 
yourself ? ” 

“ I think perhaps I’d better do it this time, Arc- 
tura, thank you just as much,” said Miss Pomeroy. 
“ Let me see — this is Thursday. I’ll write to-night, so 
Hiram can take the letter for to-morrow morning’s 
mail. I’ll ask my brother if they can spare Robert 
from Saturday afternoon for a few days ; fortunately 
a boy’s preparations do not take much time.” 

“ We really need Robert,” wrote Miss Hetty to 
her brother. u We need somebody who won’t walk 
on tiptoe on account of Maria Leeds. She is about 
as she used to be in the old school days, only, as 
father would have said, a little more so, poor un- 


So 


POLLY PRENTISS 


happy woman ! And Polly is trying so hard to 
please her that it almost carries me back to those 
first weeks of hers with me, when she was trying to 
make herself over into the sort of child she thought 
I would wish to adopt. And it’s the old people at 
Manser Farm for whom she’s working now, just as it 
was then. We aren’t worried about Polly’s health, 
for she is as plump and rosy as ever, and she eats 
and sleeps well, but there’s no doubt she’s having a 
rather sober time, nevertheless. Pack Robert off on 
Saturday, if you can spare him. Tell his mother 
with my love that it’s an urgent case. She’ll have 
her news letter as usual next week, but this is an 
4 extra ’ and Polly knows nothing about it.” 

44 Arctura thinks it would be a good plan for you 
to drive into the village with me this afternoon, 
Polly,” said Hiram just before dinner on Saturday. 
44 I’m going to have the horse shod, and you’d have 
time to visit ’round with some of your friends and 
look into the ten cent store and see what’s going on 
there ; we ought to keep track of the new notions 
better than we do. Somebody’s told Arctura of a 
slicer that’ll cut anything from squash to fresh bread, 
and she’s been berating me because I haven’t fetched 
one home to her. I get all bewildered when I’m in 
amongst the steel and tinware, but ’Tura says you 
have a steady head, and could be relied on to spy 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


8i 


out the desirable articles. Are your engagements 
such that you can accommodate us ? ” 

“ Oh, I’d love to go,” cried Folly. “ I believe it 
was just what I wanted without knowing it, Hiram. 
The sky is as blue and the wind is the kind I love. 
Mrs. Leeds says this is a weather breeder, but I’m 
not sure she’s right. She doesn’t take much comfort 
in things when they are just right, because she says 
nothing is meant to run too smoothly in this world, 
and we ought to be prepared for what is sure to come 
sooner or later.” 

“ Sho 1 ” said Hiram. “ That’s a cheerful way to 
talk ! June’s the time to look for good weather right 
along. Fact of it is, I think it’s a grand idea to keep 
looking for it all the time, then when it comes you 
kind o’ take credit to yourself for it, same as if you’d 
had part in the making of it.” 

“ Oh, Hiram, you certainly are a very comfortable 
person to talk to,” said Polly fervently. “ I’ll be all 
ready, so you won’t have to wait a minute when 
you’ve harnessed. I’ll go out to the barn, and we 
can start right from there. Mrs. Leeds will be tak- 
ing her rest up-stairs, and Aunt Hetty won’t care, 
and I love to jounce out over the barn-door sill.” 

“ All right,” said Hiram. “ You be on hand at 
two o’clock sharp.” 

There was really nothing to excite Polly in a drive 


82 


POLLY PRENTISS 


to Ashdon, the village she knew from one end to the 
other. But Polly had a knack of finding excitement 
and interest in small, every-day happenings, and 
would have been both surprised and indignant had 
any one told her that life at Pomeroy Oaks was a 
very quiet, humdrum business. 

“ There’s a feel in the air as if something very 
’specially nice might happen to-day,” said Polly, 
wriggling a little in her seat as they drove along the 
winding road, the breeze blowing her curls about her 
face, and deepening the color in her cheeks. “ I 
don’t know what , of course, Hiram, but something ! ” 

“ Well, now we’re fairly quit of the house I’ll tell 
you something,” said Hiram in a cautious undertone, 
although they were far from any listeners. “ There’s 
a kind of gypsy camp set up down on the river road, 
in James Hunter’s field ; man and his wife, three 
children and a couple o’ puppy dogs. They’ve hired 
a camping spot for a few days, as I understand it. 
They’ve come from down Maine way, and they’re 
going clear out West. They’ve got some kind of an 
apology for a horse along with ’em, and I reckon he’s 
the one that needs a rest worst of all. I thought 
maybe we might take a little extra turn and drive 
into town by way of the river road. ’Tisn’t so very 
much farther’n the regular road. What do vou 
say ? ” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


83 


u Oh, let’s ! ” cried Polly. “ I haven’t seen any 
gypsies for a long time, not since I was a little 
girl.” 

“’Tisn’t likely yon could recall anything about 
’em, after all these years,” said Hiram soberly, but 
his eyes twinkled as he looked at Polly, and she 
laughed with him. 

“ I feel quite old,” she said after a moment. 
“ Hiram, do you suppose they are the fortune-telling 
kind of gypsies ? ” 

“ I didn’t know as there was any other kind,” said 
Hiram. “These roaming folks that live outdoors 
all the time have a way of looking up into the sky 
and then squinting down at what’s in front of ’em 
and casting back and forth into the past and future ; 
some of it’s liable to hit near the truth, same as any 
guesswork is, because those that hear it set right to 
and make it fit. And after all most things in this 
world come under one head or another. For in- 
stance, Polly, if anybody said you’d had an accident 
lately, you could probably hark back a little way and 
find one — might be just getting a contrary splinter 
in your finger, or spilling something on your clothes 
— you could make it do, if you’d a mind.” 

Polly nodded. She saw that Hiram was taking 
much joy in his own discernment, and she loved to 
listen to him. 


8 4 


POLLY PRENTISS 


u Then about journeys,” he went on, flicking the 
whip against the horse’s tail as he talked ; “ anybody 
in the gypsy fortune-telling line might say to you, 
4 1 see a journey for you, with something delight- 
ful at the end of it.’ That’s the way they talk. 
Well, now, if you were expecting to go to Europe 
you’d call it that, but if you weren’t expect- 
ing anything more than going back and forth be- 
twixt here and Manser Farm, you’d make that 
fill the bill, as the saying is. Folks that set out 
to have their fortunes told aren’t going to let 
’emselves be disappointed ; I’ve noticed that many a 
time.” 

“ I don’t care anything about having my fortune 
told,” said Polly, “ but I’d just like to see how they 
look, Hiram.” 

“ All right,” said Hiram. “ That settles it ; we’ll 
drive that way and drive slowly and see what hap- 
pens.” 

When they reached the field in which the gypsies 
had encamped they were surprised to see the cart of 
Mr. Boggs, the butcher, standing at one side of the 
road, the horse comfortably feeding off a clump of 
conveniently located bushes. He turned his head to 
gaze ruminatively at the newcomers and just at that 
moment a group of people with Mr. Boggs in their 
midst appeared at the gap in the stone wall usually 



AT THE GAP IN THE STONE WALL 














































































































































































KEEPS A PROMISE 85 

crossed by three stout bars which had been thrown 
aside for the time. 

Hiram walked the horse so slowly that Polly had 
ample time to see the gypsies ; the woman was 
short and swarthy, with rough clothes, a man’s hat 
pulled over her forehead, and a bright yellow hand- 
kerchief knotted under her chin. The man was tall 
and thin and dark, not very pleasant to look at, Polly 
thought, and the children were unkempt and sullen. 
But about the group played two of the friskiest and 
sleekest puppies imaginable. 

“ Oh, Hiram, do look ! ” cried Polly. “ Aren’t 
they darlings ? Oh, don’t you wish we had one at 
Pomeroy Oaks ? ” 

“ In a general way I do,” said Hiram, “ but just 
now would be a poor time to take on any additions 
to the family, Polly, considering your boarder. 
Puppies are nice to have round when folks like ’em 
and have a good stock of patience, but they’re liable 
to chew anything they can get hold of and they’re 
no respecters of persons, I can tell you. They’d just 
as soon make a meal off Mrs. Leeds’ best shawl or 
one o’ those things she ties over her hair as not — in 
fact they’d like nothing better. Here comes Mr. 
Boggs, breaking away from the gypsy folks. How 
we shall hear some news.” 

“ Morning ! ” said the butcher, his red face redder 


86 


POLLY PRENTISS 


than usual as he hurried to his horse and pulled him 
away from his chosen bush. “Or I should say 
afternoon.” 

“ I was thinking you must have been in there 
some little time, and lost track of the day,” said 
Hiram smiling broadly. “ Been spending your 
money for a fortune ? ” 

“ Spending my money, no ! ” laughed the butcher. 
“ I was passing by here about one o’clock and the 
woman stepped out into the road and asked me if I’d 
got a little piece o’ meat she could have cheap. W ell, 
I happened to have some odds and ends that had 
been hacked off here and there, and so I told her 
she was welcome to ’em. They weren’t any good to 
me,” and he turned a still deeper red under Polly’s 
eyes. She had lifted her forefinger and was shaking 
it at him, as she had seen Mrs. Ramsdell do many 
times, in the old days at Manser Farm. 

“ That’s just what you always used to say,” and 
Polly’s laugh rippled out. “ And then did they ask 
you to dinner, Mr. Boggs ? ” 

“ That’s exactly what happened,” he said in a con- 
fidential tone, stepping close to Polly. “ They 
insisted on it, as you might say, and I had to give in 
to ’em, for I’d let out at first that I was on my way 
to the tavern for dinner. And I will say that how- 
ever that woman learnt it, she’s a master hand at a 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


87 


stew. She had the pot boiling and some o’ the fix- 
ings in it when I came along, and she just cut up 
those odds and ends o’ meat and threw ’em in, and 
stirred and seasoned while I was having a little talk 
with the man, and first I knew she set before me a 
steaming hot bowl of such a stew as I never ate in 
all my days.” 

“ And then you had to stay and make your manners 
after the meal ; I can see where the time’s gone,” said 
Hiram. “ What kind of folks are they ? ” 

“ Pretty rough,” said Mr. Boggs, tolerantly ; “ but 
they mean all right. When they get out West they 
calculate to have a house same as other folks, they 
say ; but I mistrust they’ll never be content to settle 
down in any one spot. They’re born rovers, and their 
folks were before ’em. The woman’s a regular 
Komany. She’s got a real gift for second-sight, or 
whatever you call it. She took one look at the palm 
o’ my hand and said she, ‘ You’ll make money, but 
you’ll never be able to keep it. It will run through 
your fingers like water.’ Think o’ that, and she’d 
never seen me before ! You know how true it 
is!” 

“ Don’t you believe she based her calculations just 
a mite on the way you handed over that meat?” 
asked Hiram as the butcher prepared to mount to his 
seat. 


88 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Mr. Boggs paused with his foot on the wheel, 
staring at his questioner. 

“ What would that have to do with it ? ” he de- 
manded. “ Stands to reason it hadn’t anything at 
all to do with it! Polly, when you get your ar- 
rangements made for the Manser Farm folks, you 
have a little talk with me, will you ? I can help 
you plan so their provisions next winter wouldn’t 
begin to cost ’em what they did last year. And see 
here, you’d better speak with Deacon Talcott about 
wood. I was talking with him yesterday, and I 
understand he has some that’s kind of a drug on the 
market and would be disposed of cheap to respon- 
sible parties. We’re all interested in your plans for 
keeping the old folks here if it can be managed. I 
should miss my little visits with ’em twice a week. 
Don’t you forget now.” 

“ I won’t, and thank you very much,” called Polly, 
as the butcher’s cart started on its jogging, swaying 
journey. “ Oh, Hiram, doesn’t it seem as if every- 
thing would be easy, after all ? If I can only find 
that strong young man and his wife to take care of 
the farm, I think everything else could be managed.” 

“Well,” said Hiram slowly, “that smart young 
couple may be raised right up out o’ the ground some 
day before we need them;” and in his mind he 
added, “ If they aren’t I can’t see where they’re 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


89 


coming from, with every house in the village filled 
and no applications from outsiders, so far as I know, 
for board and lodging.” 

u I think I shall find them,” said Polly hopefully ; 
“ but, Hiram, do you know how sorry Father Manser 
is to go ? Uncle Blodgett says he feels very bad 
about it, and dear Grandma Manser would rather 
stay at the farm ; and yet she doesn’t want to hurt 
his feelings,” Polly ended in a whisper. “ There are 
a good many hard decisions in this world, aren’t 
there, Hiram ? ” 

“ There are,” said Hiram ; “ there are more of that 
kind than any other. And speaking of hard de- 
cisions, here we are at the ten cent store, Polly, and 
you’ve got to pick out that slicer and anything else 
that folks are liable to tell Arctura about and gloat 
over having before she does. Soon as the horse is 
shod I’ll be back for you. I reckon time won’t hang 
heavy on your hands.” 


CHAPTER IX 


ROBERT SPEAKS UP 

Polly certainly had not found time hanging on 
her hands while Hiram was at the blacksmith’s shop. 
So engrossed was she first with the glistening tins 
and afterward with Mrs. Talcott — one of her good 
friends, and the wife of Deacon Talcott, to whom 
Mr. Boggs had referred — that she never thought of 
time until a brisk little clock in the shop struck four. 

“ I’ll have to run now, Mrs. Talcott,” said Polly. 
“ Hiram must be waiting for me, for it’s more than 
an hour. Probably he thought I was having a good 
time, just as I was, and he didn’t like to interrupt 
me. Why — why ! ” and she ended with a little cry 
of pleasure. 

For down the aisle between games and cutlery 
and tin pans came a tall, gravely smiling boy whose 
eyes shone at Polly through spectacles, and whose 
cap was in his left hand. 

“ Miss Pollyanthus Prentiss, I believe,” he said, 
holding out his right hand. “ I am instructed to 
say that your carriage awaits you. Say, Polly, it’s 
mighty good to see you ! How d’you do, Mrs. Tal- 
90 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


91 


cott ? I’ve come as a surprise party and I’m to stay 
over the Fourth.” 

“ That is perfectly splendid,” said Polly, and she 
repeated her words when, seated between Hiram and 
her cousin, she was well on her way back to Pome- 
roy Oaks. “ I was afraid there wouldn’t really be 
any Fourth for us, because — we have a boarder, 
Robert ; did you know about her ? ” 

“ I’ve heard about her,” said Robert, “ but what 
could she have to say about the Fourth, I’d like to 
know, as long as nobody sets her on fire or scares 
her.” 

“ It will be all right now you’ve come,” said Polly 
with a little sigh of satisfaction. “ Mrs. Leeds ex- 
pects boys to make a noise, she says, but girls should 
be very quiet, she thinks.” 

“ Well, I like that ! ” said Robert. “ You’re quiet 
enough for any girl. We’ll go up on the knoll be- 
hind the barn and send off the fireworks I’ve brought 
up, and then she won’t have to see or hear them un- 
less she likes. Aunt Hetty’ll have all the Manser 
Farm people over, won’t she ? There’s one piece 
father and I chose specially for Mr. Blodgett, and 
another one for Mrs. Ramsdell.” 

“ Anything for ’Tura and me ? ” inquired Hiram 
in an aggrieved tone, although his eyes betrayed 
him. 


92 


. POLLY PRENTISS 


“ You’ll like them all,” said Robert ; “ but there is 
one you’ll like best, I think, and there’s one for Polly 
and a beauty for Aunt Hetty. I asked father to 
select one with his mind on Polly’s boarder” — 
(“ Oh, please don’t call her mine ! ” begged Polly) 
“ but he said if he put his mind on her as he remem- 
bered her he wouldn’t be able to select anything. 
How do you manage to get on with her, Polly- 
anthus ? ” 

“ See here,” interposed Hiram as Polly hesitated, 
“ she’s a human being, same as the rest of us. We 
all have our faults, and she is paying fine board 
money; paying it in gold, if you’ll believe me, 
too.” 

“ Yes,” said Polly, glad of a chance to tell some- 
thing interesting about her boarder, u she has a 
little ebony chest that she carries with her wherever 
she goes, and she always keeps a roll of gold- 
pieces in one compartment of it, and her jewels in 
the other. She has diamonds, Robert, and a little 
chamois bag with ever so many unset stones in it, 
all colors. One morning when I went in to take 
care of her room ” 

“ What! ” exploded Robert. “ Why — won’t she — 
wouldn’t she rather have Arctura do it ? ” 

“ Ho,” and Polly dimpled. “ I am the one she 
wishes, Robert, and she is giving me lessons in it 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


93 


every day. I was telling yon that one morning 
when I went into her room she was just pouring 
the stones out of the little chamois bag on to a 
white cloth she had spread on the table, and the sun 
struck on them as they poured out, and they looked 
like a live rainbow ! And I suppose I must have 
said £ Oh ! ’ out loud, though I meant to keep it all 
inside. But at any rate she looked quite pleased 
and she said, ‘ Sit down, child, and I’ll tell you 
about these stones.’ And she explained all about 
them — their names and where they came from and 
everything — for a long time, and she was very 
pleasant. And then all at once she tipped them 
back into the bag, and put it into the little ebony 
chest, and locked it, and then she looked — er — well, 
severe and not pleased, the way she generally does, 
and said, ‘We’ve wasted time enough over these 
baubles ! ’ and — and that morning she was more 
particular than ever about the bed and the way I 
tucked in the corners.” 

“ I wish she were my boarder,” said Robert, stick- 
ing out the Pomeroy chin belligerently. “I don’t 
see why in the world ” 

There Robert stopped, for loyalty to his father 
and his Aunt Hetty forbade his saying more. But 
he knew, for his father had told him, that Miss 
Pomeroy had received notice the week before of a 


94 


POLLY PRENTISS 


large and wholly unexpected dividend from some 
stock which the brother and sister had held for 
years and which had suddenly risen in value. He 
knew his Aunt Hetty could give the money needed 
for Manser Farm now, if she chose, without cramp- 
ing herself in the least. There must be some reason, 
he supposed, for her not doing so. 

“It’s some kind of stunt for Polly anthus, that’s 
what it is,” he decided; “it would be just like 
Aunt Hetty to do that. She’s great on discipline 
and character.” 

He smiled covertly, remembering some instances 
in which he had been disciplined without suspecting 
it at the time, and stole a glance at Polly, who was 
talking to Hiram at the moment. As he looked it 
seemed to him that he could see changes in her face. 
Her mouth and chin were firmer ; her cheeks were 
not quite so plump as when he had last seen her, 
and her voice held a different, less childish note 
than anything he had ever heard from Polly. 

“ She’s growing up fast,” thought Eobert in dis- 
may. “ I don’t like Pollyanthus to grow up ; she 
was all right before; but I don’t believe she’ll have 
the silly age so many girls have. I just wish they 
could hear themselves giggling all the time when 
there’s nothing to laugh at ! If Polly begins that 
sort of thing I shall speak to her ; she’s my adopted 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


95 


cousin, and it’s my place. She’s a nice girl, and I 
shan’t let her get any of those foolish ways if I can 
help it.” 

It did not seem as if Polly were in immediate 
need of his correction. She was talking quite soberly 
to Hiram about the advisability of leaving a special 
order for beefsteak at Mr. Boggs’ house which they 
would pass in a moment. 

“ I forgot all about it when we saw him,” said 
Polly, “ and Arctura and I think Mrs. Leeds would 
better have it three times a week ; that’s what she’s 
always been used to in the place where she boarded. 
It has to be cut thick and cooked — broiled over the 
open fire just a very little, and then she relishes it 
because the flavor is all preserved, she says. Do you 
think we might let it go with only twice for this 
week, Hiram ? We don’t want her to feel deprived 
of her rights, as Arctura says.” 

“ Twice will do her nicely for this week, accord- 
ing to my ideas,” said Hiram. “ We mustn’t cosset 
her too much or she’ll be for abiding at Pomeroy 
Oaks for the rest of her natural days.” 

“ I guess not ! ” cried Bobert, as Hiram looked at 
him over Polly’s head. “ I can’t bear to think of an 

outsider here, any way. But Oh, it’s all right, 

Pollyanthus, for this once,” he added quickly ; “ but 
I shouldn’t like it for steady diet. It makes you 


9 6 


POLLY PRENTISS 


feel queer,” and he moved his shoulders impa- 
tiently. 

When he was presented to Mrs. Leeds at the 
supper table she raised her lorgnette as usual to 
inspect him, but Robert had no qualms. He met 
her gaze unflinchingly ; but as his young eyes stared 
into her hard ones, his forehead contracted with dis- 
pleasure until his eyebrows met. Robert was quite 
a different matter from Polly in the boarder’s opin- 
ion, for as she let her glass fall she spoke to him as 
to an equal, although not agreeably. 

“ You’re a Pomeroy, there’s no doubt about that,” 
she said crisply. “ Nobody could mistake you for 
an adopted child.” 

She did not glance toward Polly, whose cheeks 
flamed, but there was plenty of color in the boy’s 
face as he answered her. 

“ I’m glad I’m a Pomeroy,” he said clearly, “ but 
I don’t know that it’s anything to be very proud of. 
My father says my chin is an inheritance that needs 
a good deal of watching. I’m not so very easy to 
manage, and I have an awful will.” 

“That’s all right enough for a boy,” said Mrs. 
Leeds grimly. “You’ll need all the will you have 
when you get out into the world and begin to make 
money.” 

“I don’t care anything about making money,” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 97 

said Robert hotly. “I want to be successful in 
other more important ways.” 

“ Perhaps you’ll inform me what ways you con- 
sider more important,” and the black eyes shot fire 
at the blue ones ; there might have been no one else 
at the table for all the woman and the boy seemed 
to notice. 

“ Getting to the top or near the top of your pro- 
fession, whatever it is ; that’s my idea of success,” 
said Robert. “ I mean to be a lawyer first, and by 
and by I hope to be a judge.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Mrs. Leeds, and it was her turn 
to flush. 

Miss Hetty interposed then. She was the only 
one who knew that Mrs. Leeds’ husband, dead so 
many years ago, had been a young lawyer full of 
ambition which his wife had killed. She knew that 
in spite of the hard face staring across the table at 
the boy there had been a time when the widow’s 
heart had held regret, sharp and bitter. 

“ Robert’s ambition just now is closer at hand,” 
said Miss Pomeroy, “ and quite sure to be realized, 
I think. His father has provided him with a won- 
derful assortment of fireworks, and he is planning to 
give such an exhibition as has never been seen be- 
fore in this part of the country.” 

Her eyes twinkled as she looked at Robert, whose 


98 


POLLY PRENTISS 


face broadened as he smiled. The hard eyes across 
the table could not, perhaps, have been said to 
soften, but they relaxed their steady gaze at the boy 
and Mrs. Leeds actually showed a trace of amuse- 
ment. 

“ Then you aren’t too much of a man yet for 
child’s play,” she said dryly. “ I began to feel as if 
you were already on the bench, and I was on the 
witness stand.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” stammered the boy. “ I 
know I have a great way of staring when I’m inter- 
ested. Aunt Hetty, you mustn’t expect too much 
from my firework show, for perhaps it won’t turn 
out half so well as father and I hoped. We haven’t 
any good place to show them off at home, so we al- 
ways go to see the town fireworks, but father said 
he knew I’d like to have it a regular family affair 
for once in my life. If it weren’t quite so far, and 
he could get away from home, he and mother would 
motor over here. I’m his substitute. He says you 
and he used to have Fourth of July shows together, 
when you were little, Aunt Hetty.” 

“ Indeed we did,” and Miss Pomeroy fell to laugh- 
ing. “ They were never very large or wonderful, but 
we liked them, even although we both always man- 
aged to get hurt — not seriously, but enough to make 
father talk to us.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 99 

“ Those were before the days when there was talk 
of a ‘ saner Fourth,’ ” said Mrs. Leeds. “ I suppose 
you can be trusted not to set the place on fire, 
young man.” 

“ Oh, Robert is a very careful boy,” said Polly 
earnestly. “He wouldn’t be half so likely to set 
things on fire as I would, for all I’m a girl.” 

“ Then I should say you would be wise to keep 
away,” said Mrs. Leeds, and although her tone was 
as crisp and dry as ever, it again seemed to Miss 
Pomeroy that a faint flicker of amusement or at least 
tolerance passed over her face as she spoke. 

Polly certainly was a disarming little creature, 
and it took a hard person to deny her liking, thought 
Miss Pomeroy, as the little girl in her pink-sprigged 
muslin leaned forward in her eagerness to defend 
Robert from unjust suspicions. She even accepted 
the words of her boarder as if they constituted a 
fiat which must be obeyed. 

“ I’ll just be one of the audience, with Grandma 
Manser and Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles and 
Uncle Blodgett,” said Polly. 

“ You have a curious assemblage of relatives,” 
said Mrs. Leeds, “and they seem to have a great 
variety of names.” 

“ Oh, they’re not real relatives,” said Polly, flush- 
ing ; “ they’re my dear Manser Farm people. Don’t 


IOO 


POLLY PRENTISS 


you remember — I mean, probably you don’t remem- 
ber, but Mrs. Ramsdell is the old lady who told me 
she should like to call on you.” Polly did not quite 
dare put it in Mrs. Ramsdell’s own words. 

44 How does it happen you don’t call her 
4 Grandma ’ or 4 Aunty ’ ? ” inquired Mrs. Leeds. 
44 And what on earth makes her wish to call on 
me?” 

Polly faltered. She turned her eyes first on Miss 
Pomeroy’s face, and then toward Robert, but they 
were both gazing steadily at their plates. Clearly 
this was not a time when she could expect assistance. 

44 Mrs. Ramsdell is — she isn’t exactly like a grand- 
mother or an aunt,” said Polly slowly. 44 She has 
been ever so kind to me, but she — well, she’s differ- 
ent, Mrs. Leeds. You see — she’s never been any- 
body’s grandmother or aunt. Don’t you think that 
makes a difference ? ” 

44 And why does she wish to call on me ? ” asked 
Mrs. Leeds without answering Polly’s question. 

Again the brown eyes turned to Miss Pomeroy 
and Robert, and again they had to turn back, re- 
luctantly, to meet the sharp black ones. All at once 
Polly decided to say exactly what she thought, come 
what might. 

44 She likes new people, Mrs. Leeds, and she loves 
to look at pretty clothes,” said Polly with a little 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


IOI 


catch in her breath at her own daring. “ And she 
thinks a great deal of Aunt Hetty, so she ‘ had an 
interest, 5 she said, to see Aunt Hetty’s old school 
friend, and find out ‘ just what she looked like.’ ” 

“ There, Maria, you’ve put Polly in a corner, and 
she’s been frank with you,” laughed Miss Pomeroy. 
“ I think myself the matter of clothes has a good 
deal to do with it, and I advise you to put on some 
of those gay trappings of yours for the afternoon 
and evening of the Fourth. You might as well 
oblige Mrs. Kamsdell and me. I love to see your 
Paris gowns and your ornaments, and she would be 
enchanted.” 

“ I shall more than likely keep to my room and 
not see these guests of yours,” said Mrs. Leeds, but 
Miss Hetty smiled across the table at her, quite un- 
disturbed. 

“You’ll see them, Maria,” she said tranquilly. 
“ You wouldn’t miss it for anything. I know you 
of old. You haven’t had half enough of an audience 
since you came here. I’ve been thinking we must 
do something about it. Fourth of July is coming 
just in the nick of time.” 

Mrs. Leeds looked at her and her features grad- 
ually relaxed. 

“ I wonder at your daring to say such a thing to 
me, Hester Pomeroy,” she answered her old friend, 


102 


POLLY PRENTISS 


and then, wonder of wonders, there sounded a laugh 
so much like that of an ordinary person that Polly 
started. “ Impertinent ! ” said Mrs. Leeds with her 
eyes snapping, and then she laughed again. 


CHAPTER X 


POLLY HAS AN IDEA 

Things were different since Robert had come, 
Polly told herself joyfully the next afternoon. Mrs. 
Leeds had gone to church in the morning, and as she 
needed Polly’s help about dressing, the bed had been 
made with scarcely a word of criticism. Polly’s 
fingers were deft with hooks and eyes when it came 
to the garments of others ; it was her own fastenings 
alone which were apt to elude her and play her false. 
Then the lorgnette had, at Miss Pomeroy’s laughing 
but earnest request, been left at home. 

“ I’ll not wear my homely old eye-glasses even to 
please you,” Mrs. Leeds had stated distinctly, “ but 
if you prefer to have me sit in that church, not see- 
ing half the people, or the expression of your minis- 
ter’s face or anything, why, I’m willing to do it for 
once.” 

“ Our pew is way up front, Mrs. Leeds,” ventured 
Polly. “ I think you’ll be able to see exactly how 
Mr. Endicott looks, because you know you saw me 
pick the rose yesterday, you said, when you were in 
your window and I was at the other end of the gar- 
den.” 

103 


104 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ Colors I can see at a longer distance than any- 
thing else,” said Mrs. Leeds with a keen glance at 
Polly. 

“ Yes’m, and Mr. Endicott has ever so much 
color,” said Polly. “ His cheeks are red and his 
eyes are the kind that shine, and so is his hair, and 
his Bible has a red cover.” 

“ I can’t tell about that Polly of yours, Hester,” 
Mrs. Leeds had said to Miss Pomeroy later on. “ If 
I thought she was trying to be smart or saucy when 
she says some of these things that sound so innocent, 
I’d make short work of her.” 

“ They sound innocent because they are innocent,” 
said Miss Hetty. “ And wasn’t she right about your 
seeing, Maria ? How much did you miss this morn- 
ing?” 

“That isn’t the point,” said Mrs. Leeds grudg- 
ingly, but she let the matter drop. 

After church Mr. Endicott had come down to 
speak to them, and had accepted Miss Pomeroy’s in- 
vitation to dinner, much to the joy of Polly and 
Robert. And now dinner being over the minister 
was sitting up in the barn chamber, deep in fragrant 
hay, with his two young friends, and they were dis- 
cussing many things with great freedom while Miss 
Hetty and Polly’s boarder took their naps. Arctura 
and Hiram were sitting under a wide-spreading apple 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


105 


tree which was one of Arctura’s prime favorites, and 
they were singing hymns and old songs, as they had 
done together for many years. Hiram’s voice was 
not always true when he sang alone, but with his 
sister’s steady tones for guide he was able to carry a 
fair tenor. 

44 Doesn’t it sound pretty ? ” said Polly as a little 
silence fell on the group seated in the hay, and the 
strains of “ Home, Sweet Home” floated up through 
the summer air. “ I do love to hear Arctura and 
Hiram. Mr. Endicott, do you suppose they would 
have been allowed to sing like that in the days of 
the Puritans ? ” 

44 I’m afraid not, Polly,” said Mr. Endicott ; 44 in 
fact I’m very sure they would not. They might 
have sung in church, however, some very solemn 
hymns.” 

“ I’m glad I’m living right now,” said Polly joy- 
fully, rocking back and forth, her elbows clasped in 
her hands. 44 Sundays must have been pretty long, 
hard days for the boys and girls to live through. I 
think I should have been in disgrace all the time, be- 
cause I never can remember to 4 walk slowly and 
speak with dignity.’ That’s what it says in an old 
4 Book of Deportment ’ that Aunt Hetty showed me. 
I’m afraid I haven’t very much deportment.” 

44 You have enough; hasn’t she, Mr. Endicott ? ” 


106 POLLY PRENTISS 

Robert appealed to the minister. “ Doesn’t it seem 
to be getting pretty hot up here ? What do you say 
to a walk along down by the brook to see if there 
are any cardinal flowers out, and how the trout 
look.” 

“ All right,” said Mr. Endieott, and he led the way 
down the steep narrow stairs and out of the barn. 
Polly waved her hand to Arctura as they passed 
within sight of the big apple tree, and Arctura in re- 
turn pointed to Hiram, who had apparently fallen 
asleep in the middle of a song which she was finish- 
ing alone, letting her voice grow softer and softer as 
she sang on. 

When they reached the brook the three friends 
seated themselves on a wide flat stone. Polly’s eyes 
were fastened on the farther bank of the little stream, 
where an old shoe, sodden and shapeless, had lodged 
in the roots of a tree. 

“ Do you suppose somebody went in swimming 
way up the brook and lost that shoe, and it floated 
down here, and they never knew ? ” mused Polly 
dreamily. 

“ Look here, Pollyanthus,” said Robert, “ I hope 
you aren’t going to turn poetical like your friend 
Mary Graham. That shoe was probably landed 
there some one of the times when the brook over- 
flowed last spring, and it probably came from a dump 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


107 


heap up in the woods. It must have been too far 
gone even for a rummage sale before it got wet. 
Look at that great split ! ” 

Polly sat up, all dreaminess gone from her face 
and tone. She took a little pinch of Robert’s coat 
sleeves between her fingers and gently shook him by 
its aid. 

“ Robert ! ” she said breathlessly. “ Mr. Endicott ! 
Why couldn’t I have a rummage sale for the bene- 
fit of Manser Farm ? They always have them for 
the benefit of something ; I’ve read about them in 
the papers. And nobody has ever thought to have 
one in Ashdon. There must be hundreds of things 
people would be glad to have rummaged.” 

“ Who’d buy them ? ” asked Robert. “ That’s the 
main point.” 

“ Why, everybody’d buy them,” said Polly. 
“ Everybody would buy things that somebody else 
had given to the sale, and they’d love to get such 
bargains.” 

“ I believe you’ve hit it, Polly,” laughed Mr. Endi- 
cott. “ It’s the bargains that attract people. A bar- 
gain, Robert, is something that is cheap ; whether 
you happen to need it, or had beforehand the least 
idea of buying it, has nothing to do with it. I don’t 
see why your rummage sale should not be a great 
success, Polly. Where would you have it ? ” 


io8 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ I wonder.” Polly’s eyes were thoughtful. “ Do 
you suppose the selectmen would let us have it in the 
old Number Two schoolhouse that isn’t used now ? 
There are two good-sized rooms, and the sale 
wouldn’t do the schoolhouse a bit of harm. I could 
have it all scrubbed afterward.” 

“ I happen to know the selectmen are to meet to- 
morrow to discuss a matter that has come up in con- 
nection with the work on the turnpike,” said Mr. 
Endicott. “ If you stepped in on that meeting, you 
might find they would incline favorably to your 
plan.” 

“Will you go with me, Robert?” asked Polly 
eagerly. “ Then after I’ve seen them, if Aunt Hetty 
approves, I could see Mrs. Talcott and some of the 
other people and then we could post notices of the 
sale. I think it would be perfectly splendid ! ” 

“ In the old Puritan days,” said Robert solemnly, 
“ I am very sure, Miss Polly Prentiss, that you would 
have been warned to make no plans of any sort on 
Sunday, lest they come to naught on Monday.” 

“I think a good plan ought to have the best 
chance of all if it’s made on Sunday,” asserted Polly 
stoutly. “Would you like to hear my letters from 
the girls, the ones that came yesterday, Mr. Endi- 
cott ? I thought maybe you would, so I tucked them 
in my blouse when we started for the barn, and I 


KEEPS A PROMISE I09 

forgot all about them till just now I heard them 
crackling.” 

“ I’ve heard them read once,” said Kobert toler- 
antly, “ but I don’t mind listening to them again. 
They’re pretty good fun.” 

“ The girls didn’t mean them for fun, any one of 
them,” said Polly with dancing eyes. “I’ll read 
Mary Graham’s first, because we’ve just been speak- 
ing about her. This is the way she begins : 

“ 4 Oh, Polly mine, can I resign the hopes that 
filled my heart ? Can I — oh, I can’t take the time 
to write in poetry, for three of my little cousins are 
here visiting, and I can hardly get away from them 
a minute. But I must send a few lines right away 
to say I think September will be even lovelier than 
August would have been ; and if it should be full 
moon time, and you and I could stand on your 
porch, your vine-clad porch, and look out over the 
broad acres flooded with silver light and listen to the 
sounds of the dying year together, it would be sweet , 
for you are about the only person who never laughs 
at my ideas ! My mother will write to your Aunt 
Hetty very soon, and I will write again. Meanwhile 
I am your loving 

44 4 Mary.’ 


44 And here is Janet’s,” said Polly without waiting 


no 


POLLY PRENTISS 


for the comment she saw lurking behind Robert’s 
grin. “It is quite different from Mary’s, because 
Janet is so different herself. When they are all here 
together, Mr. Endicott, you’ll see just how it is. 
Janet says : 

“ 4 Dear Polly, at first when I read your letter I 
was terribly disappointed, but when I read it over 
the second time I was almost glad, and mother 
thinks September will be a great deal better for me 
than August because she says she knows the minute 
I go away from home I shall innevitably (are there 
two n’s in that ? but you won’t mind, anyway) give 
up my diet, and the longer I can keep it up at home, 
the better it will be for me, the doctor says I’m too 
fat for my age and that is why (one of the reasons) I 
get tired. I should be ashamed to tell you what I 
weighed a month ago, Polly, but it is five pounds 
less now, so mother feels rather hopeful, but father 
laughs and says what’s the use when she’s like my 
side of the family, look at my aunt, you know Polly 
the one I’ve spoken of. But at any rate mother 
hopes to reduce me quite a lot before September and 
it will be glorious to visit you then. I’ll write again 
next week. With much love, 

“ 4 Janet.’ ” 


“She isn’t very strong on punctuation, Polly, 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


III 


judging by the way you read that letter,” said 
Robert, but Polly only shook her head at him and 
opened Alicia’s letter. 

“ ‘ My dearest Polly,’ ” she read, “ ‘ it would have 
been delightful to visit you in August, but mother 
thinks September will be even more charming. And 
then your noble work — oh, I forgot that — your 
— your summer will be over, your renunciation will 
be completed.’ ” 

Polly’s soft forehead was puckered. “ Alicia loves 
to use long words,” she said. “ I think renunciation 
is a good deal too long and too large for anything 
I’m doing, but she means it to be very complimen- 
tary, you see. She goes on to tell about what she’s 
doing. 

u ‘We are living on a very high plane this sum- 
mer, for there is a Brahmin here visiting one of our 
neighbors and although of course, as mother says, 
we deplore their views on religion, the plane they 
live on is very high. Food and pleasure and every- 
thing cf that sort are considered beneath their notice ; 
and they are very deep. Mother went to three of 
the talks on character and spirituality this Brahmin 
gave in our friend’s house, and she came home with 
a perfectly raging headache every time, and at last 
she decided it was really too deep for her. She said 
he hardly used one ordinary word or expression from 


1 12 


POLLY PRENTISS 


the beginning to the end of his talks and they lasted 
two hours. But he said you should live at your very 
highest possible point all the time, and never con- 
sider your own feelings or desires for a moment, and 
mother and I feel that you are being an instance of 
such action. I must go to drive now, but will write 
you soon again. 

“ 6 Your devoted 

“ ‘ Alicia.’ ” 

“ Stuff ! ” said Kobert in a tone of disgust. “ I 
wonder you like her as well as you do, Pollyanthus.” 

“ Oh, Alicia’s letters are quite different from Alicia 
herself,” laughed Polly. “ She’s just as sensible as 
any of the other girls, underneath. Miss Dorothea 
and Miss Alma say she will make a very fine woman. 
Now here is Josephine’s letter, and it sounds exactly 
like her. She doesn’t even bother to try to spell 
right to me. 

“ ‘ Dear Polly, at first when I read how Francis 
and I were not invited to go to Pomeroy Oaks till 
four weeks longer off than we had expected, Polly I 
had mad feelings and also I cried. But after that, I 
said to myself September will come and the apples 
will be good and it will be cool and the border will 
be gone to her home and it is all for the best. We are 
surprize that your aunt would let you take a border 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


113 

when they are all ways a trouble, but we are glad 
those people at the farm need not go away to live. 
Give them all my wishes and Francis sends his, and 
to Arctura and Hiram Green, and our best remem- 
berings to your Aunt Hetty. Francis and I have 
gained ten pounds each, and some of my clothes will 
not come close any more. Write me very soon. I 
am your loving friend, 

“‘ Josephine Olsen.’” 

“ She’s a frank little girl, at any rate,” said the 
minister. “And you are fond of her, aren’t you, 
Polly ? ” 

“ Yes, I am,” said Polly as she folded the letters 
and squeezed them all back into a square envelope. 
“ She’s as nice as she can be. They’re all as nice as 
they can be, in different ways.” 

“We know somebody else who’s ‘ nice as she can 
be,’ don’t we, Mr. Endicott?” asked Robert teas- 
ingly, but Polly would not be teased. 

“ Ho ! You’d have to think I’m nice, because I’m 
an adopted relative,” she said ; “ thatfs nothing ! 
Let’s talk a little more about the rummage sale be- 
fore it’s time to go back to the house.” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE SELECTMEN 

To think of a thing with Polly meant being, as 
Arctura said, “ on pins and needles till she could do 
something about it.” Therefore she had much ado 
to wait until an appropriate time for asking her Aunt 
Hetty’s opinion of her new project, for the time did 
not come until evening. 

When she returned to the house with Mr. Endicott 
and Robert they found callers who, when they de- 
parted which was not until dusk, took Mr. Endicott 
with them. Then it was time for Polly to help Arc- 
tura, as she always did Sunday evenings, with the sand- 
wiches and iced-tea which, with frosted cakes and 
cookies, made the little supper, served on the porch 
in warm weather and in the library before the open 
fire when the days were short and cold. 

That evening Robert was pressed into service to 
carry the tray with the big glass pitcher and the 
slender glasses in which the tea was served, for 
Arctura had hurt her left hand. 

“ ’Tisn’t but what I’m perfectly able to carry that 
tray as well as ever I was,” said Arctura to Robert 
whom she had beckoned into the kitchen, “ but I’ve 
114 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


II 5 

had to bandage my hand where that miserable new 
slicer cut it, and I don’t know as that Leeds woman 
would think ’twas proper for me to appear in public, 
as you might say, with a bandaged hand. You hold 
steady now while I balance the glasses and the 
pitcher right, and then you take it out there, and say 
nothing about me. ’Tisn’t likely that woman would 
care if I’d sliced my hand off, but she might make 
talk about it.” 

“ I do think it’s a shame, Arctura,” said Polly, who 
had carried out her first tray and was returning for 
the second. u ¥e thought that slicer would be so 
fine, and it’s made trouble the very first thing. I’m 
sorry I bought it ! ” 

“ Well, you needn’t be,” said Arctura grimly. “ If 
a woman of my age hasn’t learned to go a little slow 
until she gets the hang of a new device, she’d better 
have something to make her remember — and I’ve 
just had it. I was sawing away with that blade same 
as if it had been the old bread knife that has to be 
ground every week to keep it going. I shan’t make 
that mistake again, whatever else I do, and in this 
world it’s live and learn, live and learn. There 
now, step along, both of you, for I want to groan a 
mite to relieve my feelings ; ’tisn’t that my suffer- 
ings are so great, Polly child, so don’t you worry.” 

“ I see that your admirable Arctura demands her 


1 16 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Sunday freedom just as all the servants do nowadays,” 
said Mrs. Leeds when the rustic table on the porch 
had been spread with the little feast and she was 
bidden to it. “She certainly hasn’t been over- 
worked to-day, and I saw her sitting at her ease this 
afternoon with that brother of hers stretched on the 
grass beside her, evidently fast asleep.” 

“ I’m glad of it,” said Miss Hetty promptly. 
“ Hiram works hard all the week, and so does Arctura, 
but she is always ready to do whatever is needed on 
Sunday. I suppose she thought Polly and Robert 
would enjoy arranging this little supper themselves. 
I’m sure the sandwiches are of her cutting, aren’t 
they, Polly ? You aren’t quite equal to such paper 
thin slices yet, are you ? Although I know you are 
improving.” 

“ I couldn’t possibly cut them half as thin as 
Arctura’s,” Polly said quickly. As usual she felt 
indignant at Mrs. Leeds’ criticism. She almost told 
of Arctura’s accident, but bit her lip just in time to 
keep back the words. 

“ She makes me so provoked, Robert, I have to 
run off and get smoothed down, or I should be saucy 
to her some time,” Polly confided to the boy when 
they were carrying off the remnants of the feast. 
“ That’s why I flew back to the kitchen to get some 
more ice — we didn’t need it one bit.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


II 7 

“ I knew yon were upset, Polly anthus,” said Eobert 
frankly. “I wouldn’t pay any attention to her. 
Let it go in one ear and out the other. That’s what 
Aunt Hetty does ; I can tell by the way she laughs. 
I don’t think your boarder is such a bad sort, after 
all. She’s been fairly civil to me.” 

“ She’s been very nice indeed to you,” said Polly, 
fanning herself with the infinitesimal white apron 
with pink bows which changed her Sunday gown 
into a working costume. “ That’s because you’re a 
boy. Oh, I do hope she’ll go to bed early so I can 
ask Aunt Hetty about the selectmen and the rum- 
mage sale.” 

The softness of the air and a clear moon worked 
together to try Polly’s patience, but at last her 
boarder rose, said her crisp “good-night” and left 
the company. Then Polly fell on her Aunt Hetty 
and the words bubbled from her lips so fast that 
Miss Pomeroy was obliged to cry for quarter. 

“ More slowly, please, Polly ! ” she exclaimed. 
“What is this about selectmen and empty school- 
houses and old water-soaked shoes and Manser 
Farm ? And don’t try to talk at the same time, 
Eobert ! How, start all over again, Polly.” 

When the wonderful plan was fully unfolded to 
her, Miss Hetty sat quite silent for a moment, while 
Polly waited breathlessly and Eobert, hands in 


ii 8 


POLLY PRENTISS 


his pockets, whistled softly. Then Miss Hetty 
laughed. 

“ I don’t know why it shouldn’t be a good idea,” 
she said. “ At any rate it will do no harm for you 
two children to beard the selectmen in their den 
to-morrow. If they consent, I believe the rummage 
sale would be an excellent thing ; it would wake up 
that sleepy town and bring people together. I have 
some contributions that I think might be useful. 
Dear, dear ! ” 

She laughed again, softly, to herself, when Polly 
and Robert, after a long discussion of their plans, 
had left her. 

“ It’s nearly four years, Arctura tells me, since 
Daniel Hale’s wife and Mrs. James Hunter have 
been on speaking terms, and there’s been nothing 
to bring them together,” she mused. “ They go to 
rival churches — think of two churches in a little 
place like Ashdon ! — and there has been no exhibi- 
tion from either of them at the County Fair since 
that unfortunate time when they each sent a quilt 
and Mrs. Hale’s won the prize. And now Polly 
plans to have the wives of the selectmen take charge 
of the rummage sale together. Well, let the child 
see what she can do ; she knows nothing of feuds or 
quarrels in the town, and I shan’t enlighten her in 
any way. Let’s see what will happen.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


119 

When Polly and Robert, after load knocking, 
were admitted to the presence of the three select- 
men in Town Hall next day, Polly’s heart beat fast. 
The three men greeted her and her cousin gravely, 
and looked at Polly, awaiting an explanation of this 
surprising interruption. She caught her breath and 
then plunged into the middle of her explanations. 
When she had finished the three men looked at one 
another and hesitated. 

“ And if you will let us have the schoolhouse for 
it,” added Polly, seeing opportunity for a few more 
words, “ why, then I can begin to solicit things right 
away, and first of all I’d call at each of your houses, 
and ask Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Talcott and Mrs. Hunter 
if they would be the committee to receive goods and 
mark prices, because they know exactly how much 
things are worth and I shouldn’t know at all. But 
I could be here to sell almost all day, or two days, if 
it lasted two days, and I would do everything I 
could.” 

“I’ve no doubt you’d do your share,” said Mr. 
Hale, and the other two men nodded acquiescence. 
“ I suppose we’ll have to take official action on this, 
gentlemen, but if the petitioning party will withdraw 
into the adjoining room, or the entry, it will not be 
a very long matter, perhaps.” 

Polly and Robert withdrew to the adjoining room, 


120 


POLLY PRENTISS 


a little closet of a place, from the window of which 
Polly thrust her head out-of-doors to cool her hot 
cheeks. It was not more than ten minutes at most 
before the door was opened and Mr. Hale gravely 
summoned them again into the presence of the 
selectmen. 

“ Being chairman,” he said with great solemnity 
when the petitioners were ranged before the old 
table at which the selectmen habitually sat to trans- 
act business, “ I am deputed to state that we hereby 
authorize you to hold the rummage sale referred to 
in the now vacant schoolhouse known as Number 
Two, for the space of two days or longer if neces- 
sary, time to be hereafter agreed upon, with the 
understanding that any and all damages suffered by 
the building during your occupancy shall be repaired 
without cost to the town of Ashdon. Do you hereby 
agree to this understanding and affirm that you will 
stand by it ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Polly without a smile, for she felt 
that it was indeed a serious matter. 

“ The papers may then be made out at once,” said 
Mr. Hale, “ and signed. Please be seated.” 

A few minutes later Polly had in her possession 
a large sheet of foolscap, headed “Agreement be- 
tween Polly Prentiss of Pomeroy Oaks and the 
Town of Ashdon,” and signed by the three selectmen 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


121 


and by her. Robert knew from the glint in Mr. 
Hunter’s eyes that this document was not actually 
required, but Polly received it with fervor. 

“ Senator Geddis says that when you have things 
in black and white you know exactly what they 
are,” she said to Robert when they had made their 
adieus to the selectmen after Polly’s earnest thanks 
had been graciously accepted, and they were out on 
the main street of Ashdon. “ I wrote him two weeks 
ago and told him all about my plans for this sum- 
mer, and he sent me a note when he was starting off 
for a little trip, he said. I didn’t have to ask his 
advice, because Aunt Hetty had found out about the 
money for Manser Farm, but I felt sure he’d like to 
know what was happening. He wrote that I should 
hear from him soon again, so I probably shall have a 
post-card from some place, this week maybe. Isn’t 
it wonderful, Robert, to think of having a United 
States Senator for a truly friend ? ” 

“ Why, I don’t know as there’s anything so very 
wonderful about it,” returned practical Robert. “ A 
senator’s a man like anybody else, and he has to 
know some girls, of course ; he couldn’t help it. And 
I don’t see why you shouldn’t be one of them.” 

Polly gave a pretended sigh and shook her head 
at him. 

“ This is the time,” she said, “ when Mary Graham 


122 


POLLY PRENTISS 


would be a comfort. It seems to me boys want 
everything so plain and every-day.” 

“ Well,” said Robert, “ that’s sensible, isn’t it ? If 
things are plain and every-day you don’t have to keep 
thinking about them, and using your imagination. 
Girls waste a lot of time imagining ; their thoughts 
are sort of hazy.” 

“I won’t waste any more to-day,” said Polly 
briskly. “ Come along, Robert ; we have to go to 
Mrs. Talcott’s now, and then to the other two select- 
men’s wives.” 

“‘We’!” echoed Robert. “Well, I guess not 
‘ we,’ Miss Pollyanthus Prentiss. If you think I’m 
going to make calls you’re much mistaken ! When 
you get through with your interviews you’ll find me 
in the Library. Going to leave that precious paper 
with me ? ” 

“ No indeed ! ” and Polly hugged it close. “ This 
is what I shall show each one of them, first of all, 
to prove I’m authorized. I’m surprised at you, 
Robert Pomeroy, to think you know so little about 
legal matters ! ” 

And laughing, but with her head held as high as 
possible, Polly waved him a farewell and started 
across the street to the Talcott house. 


CHAPTER XII 


WHAT MRS. HALE SAID 

Mrs. Talcott entered into the plans for the rum- 
mage sale with a heartiness which rejoiced her caller. 

“ I have a row of vases up in my garret, not to 
speak of other things, that I’ll be glad to dispose of 
at any price or for nothing, for the sake of getting 
rid of them,” she told Polly promptly. “ And if we 
advertise freely, and some of those mill people from 
Greenby come over here, those vases are just the 
things that will catch their eyes. And as for cloth- 
ing, look at the way our children are all growing up 
here in Ashdon and none, scarcely, coming along to 
replace them, whereas there’ve been eleven new 
babies in Greenby since last March. I saw it in 
their paper. Polly, you’ve had a first-rate thought. 
And you want me on your receiving and marking 
committee; is that the idea? Well, I’ll be glad to 
do it. I approve of the plan, and the object. I told 
the deacon I couldn’t bear to think of our Manser 
Farm folks carried off to another town, poor old 
dears ! Who are the rest of your committee, Polly ? ” 
123 


124 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hunter, and I hope they’ll be 
as pleased as you are,” said Polly. “ I don’t know 
either of them so very well, but I thought they’d 
probably be willing to help. Don’t you believe they 
will?” 

“Your Aunt Hetty knew whom you were plan- 
ning to ask, dear ? ” inquired Mrs. Talcott after a 
moment’s hesitation. “Yes, of course I knew you 
would have told her. Well, there are no two more 
capable women in town than Mrs. Hale and Mrs. 
Hunter ; if you can get them both to serve on your 
committee you’ll be doing a splendid thing, a 
splendid thing,” and she smiled at Polly. 

“ I thought I’d go to Mrs. Hale first, because I 
know her a little better than Mrs. Hunter,” said 
Polly ; “ and then when I tell Mrs. Hunter you’ve 
both promised, why, shouldn’t you think it would be 
an inducement, Mrs. Talcott ? ” 

Her hostess looked out of the window, then she 
smiled at Polly again. 

“ It might,” she said slowly ; “you can never tell.” 

Polly found Mrs. Hale almost as enthusiastic as 
Mrs. Talcott had been until she inquired if any one 
beside that much-loved neighbor and herself were to 
be on the receiving and marking committee. 

“ Yes’m,” said Polly, “ at least I hope Mrs. Hunter 
will be. I thought if the wife of each selectman ap- 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


125 


proved and helped, the town would be sure to ap- 
prove and help, too. Your husbands were all just as 
kind as they could be ! ” 

Mrs. Hale had looked far from pleased at Polly’s 
first sentence, but at the last words her mouth 
twitched with amusement. Polly was not aware 
that she had said anything funny in her earnestness, 
so she sat awaiting Mrs. Hale’s verdict, serious and 
eager. 

“ Well,” said her hostess after what seemed a long 
silence, “perhaps she will take an interest in the 
affair. You couldn’t have a better person to help 
than Alvira Hunter if she does take hold. You 
might tell her I said so, if you happen to remem- 
ber it.” 

“Oh, I’ll remember it,” said Polly. “And I 
thank you very, very much, Mrs. Hale, for saying 
you’ll help. I think I’d better go right over to 
Mrs. Hunter now, for Robert is waiting for me at 
the Library and he might think I was a long time.” 

“ I don’t believe he’d think anything about it,” 
said Mrs. Hale, patting Polly’s arm as she stood 
with her in the doorway. “ I’ve seen him with his 
nose in a book in that reading-room when all the 
world might have passed by and he’d have been 
none the wiser. He’s a very intellectual boy, isn't 
he?” 


126 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ Why, I don’t know,” laughed Polly. “ He 
knows a great many times more than I do, but he 
wouldn’t have to be very intellectual to do that. I 
think it’s his spectacles that make him look so 
learned. Good-bye, and thank you, Mrs. Hale.” 

“ I’d give a good deal to hear what Alvira Hunter 
says to her,” and Mrs. Hale reluctantly closed her 
door as she saw Polly run up the brick walk which 
led between prim flower beds to the Hunters’ house. 
“ I certainly would give a good deal.” 

Mrs. Hunter was a little woman with a round 
face and an obstinate mouth. Her china blue eyes 
watched Polly as she told of her plans for the 
rummage sale. They brightened when she heard 
that Mrs. Talcott was to be on the committee for 
receiving and marking contributions, but they con- 
tracted, so that Polly knew something had dis- 
pleased her, at the mention of Mrs. Hale. 

“And Mrs. Hale told me,” Polly hurried on, 
wondering what had gone wrong, “ Mrs. Hale said 
I couldn’t have a better person than you, Mrs. 
Hunter, if you would take hold and help.” 

“Were those Addie Hale’s words?” questioned 
Mrs. Hunter sharply. 

“ Yes’m,” said Polly, “those were her very exact 
words, and she — she told me I could repeat them to 
you if I happened to remember them, and of course 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 27 

I couldn’t help remembering because they were so 
complimentary. ’ ’ 

Polly smiled hopefully at her hostess, who had 
folded her arms and sat looking at her with pursed 
lips. At last Mrs. Hunter spoke, deliberately, with- 
out removing her gaze from Polly’s face. 

“Has anybody ever said anything to you about 
Addie Hale and me in connection with the County 
Fair four years ago ? ” she questioned her young 
visitor. 

“ Ho’m,” said Polly, wondering. “ That was be- 
fore I came to live at Pomeroy Oaks with Aunt 
Hetty. I haven’t heard about a great many nice 
things that happened before that time, Mrs. Hunter ; 
you see I wasn’t very old, and I’d never been to a 
County Fair.” Polly’s tone was apologetic. 

“ ’Twasn’t anything very nice that I’m referring 

to,” began Mrs. Hunter. “ It was an ” she 

hesitated, looking into Polly’s clear eyes, and all at 
once her mouth took on a softer curve. “ Dear me, 
I don’t need to explain it to a child like you, no 
older than my Nettie,” she said with a half laugh. 
“I don’t believe in putting things on to young 
shoulders when ’tisn’t necessary. If you want me 
on your committee I’ll be on it, that’s all ; if Addie 
Hale doesn’t like it, she can do the other thing.” 

“Oh, she’ll like it,” said Polly with eagerness. 


128 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ I think she was very anxious to have you do it, 
Mrs. Hunter. Probably she’ll tell you how pleased 
she is the very next time you see her. And I thank 
you very much. Now I must go home and talk to 
Aunt Hetty about the notices and plan for the 
dates. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but we have a 
boarder at our house ” 

“ I knew it,” said Mrs. Hunter briefly. “ I guess 
everybody in Ashdon knows about your boarder.” 

“Yes’m,” said Polly. “You see she isn’t very 
well, and her head isn’t very strong, and I have to 
do a good many things for her. She has said she 
was going off for three days to visit a friend who’s 
coming to get her in an automobile ; she hasn’t said 
when yet, but I thought if we could have the sale 
then, if you ladies were willing, I could help all the 
time, and yet it wouldn’t give Aunt Hetty or 
Arctura any more care at home.” 

u I can see that plain enough,” said Mrs. Hunter. 
“ So far as I know there won’t be an entertainment 
of any kind after the two church strawberry festi- 
vals, and they both come within the next ten days. 
Ours is next Wednesday, and I understand the other 
comes about the same time.” 

Polly’s eyes opened wide at this, but she wisely 
refrained from saying what was on the tip of her 
tongue. In the post-office an hour before she had 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


129 


read the two notices, pinned side by side on the 
little bulletin board, and the dates were identical. 
Hiram had pointed them out to Polly and Kobert. 

“ Means there’ll be a slim attendance at each of 
them,” Hiram had said. “ Hobody but a few o’ the 
boys will manage to take them both in. Seems 
kind of like silly child’s play, now doesn’t it, trying 
to get ahead of each other, though I don’t blame 
our church, for we made announcement first. And 
’tisn’t any of Mr. Endicott’s wish to have such 
rivalry going on when two little parcels o’ folks are 
supposed to be working for the same end, along 
little different lines. It doesn’t seem as if a thing 
like that was going to help on the Lord’s work 
much, now does it ? ” 

When Polly had said good-bye to Mrs. Hunter she 
walked along to the Library ; on the steps she met 
Mr. Endicott, and the subject being uppermost in 
her mind, she told him about her last call and the 
strawberry festival notices. She laughed, but the 
minister’s smile was a rueful one. 

“ I’m going to see if I can persuade our people to 
give it up,” he said. “ There are some repairs needed 
for our church parlors, and I think we could easily 
arrange to have them made at that time. Then we 
should all be free to go to the other strawberry 
festival. I think it would promote good feeling, 


130 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Polly, don’t you ? Perhaps I couldn’t persuade all 
our people to go, but I think a good many of them 
would.” 

“ I believe Mr. and Mrs. Hale would,” said Polly 
thoughtfully. “Something Mrs. Hunter began to 
tell me made me think she and Mrs. Hale don’t 
see as much of each other as they used to, and I be- 
lieve they are both sorry about it.” 

“ I’ll speak to them especially, and thank you for 
the suggestion, Polly,” said Mr. Endicott. “ Where 
the Hales lead many of the congregation will 
follow.” 

“ How did you make out with your campaign ? ” 
asked Hiram, when they were on the road to 
Pomeroy Oaks. “ Everybody anxious to help out ? 
Selectmen just like putty in your hands ? ” 

“ When we get home I’ll show Arctura and you 
the contract I have signed with the town of Ashdon,” 
said Polly importantly. “It is a real legal docu- 
ment, Hiram, and I was just as excited when I 
signed it! The selectmen were as kind as they 
could be, and their wives were, too, and I do not 
truly see why the rummage sale won’t come off, as 
Arctura says, with flying colors, do you, Robert ? ” 

“ The prospects are very good, I should say,” re- 
plied Robert in a truly judicial manner. “ To be 
sure you have to reckon with your boarder yet ; she 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


131 

may balk at going away, particularly if she knows 
you’d like to have her.” 

“Oh, don’t say it that way, Kobert,” begged 
Polly. “ I don’t want her to go away for the visit 
unless she’d like to, of course.” 

“ Don’t you ? ” jeered Kobert. “ Now I thought 
you were pretty keen about it ; I see I’ve mistaken 
the whole situation.” 

Polly colored and laughed, but she held her 
ground, nevertheless, insisting that she thought the 
visit would give her boarder pleasure, otherwise she 
wouldn’t wish her away from Pomeroy Oaks. But 
she was surprised and not precisely delighted at 
what Mrs. Leeds said to her the next morning at 
bed-making time. 

“ I hear you are planning for one of those awful 
rummage sales, child,” she said abruptly. “ I have 
a lot of stuff in one of my trunks that I will donate 
when the time comes. And I will act as one of the 
committee in charge, for I’ve had a great deal of 
experience. You’ll have it the first week in August, 
or possibly the last day or two of July, of course. 
That’s the time to catch all the summer visitors in 
the neighboring towns ; Ashdon has scarcely any 
summer colony, I hear, but people will motor over 
from Greenby, Hoi way and Farmerton without 
doubt. And if you advertise it well, you’ll get 


132 


POLLY PRENTISS 


some cast-off hats and waists from those rich people 
in Holway that would be Sunday best for Ashdon 
girls.” 

She spoke with the frankness and utter disregard 
for the feelings of others that distinguished most of 
her remarks. Polly winced, for there were pretty 
girls in Ashdon whose clothes were fresh and ap- 
propriate, if never costly. Polly was very sure they 
would not care for half-worn finery. But she 
smoothed the bed-spread with special care and said 
nothing. 

“ You may count on me, at any rate,” said Mrs. 
Leeds decidedly. “ I shan’t go away to pay my visit 
until after the sale is over, at any rate. I am a 
woman of my word, and what is more when I see 
an opportunity for usefulness I never shirk it as 
some do. There’s a dent in that left hand pillow 
in the middle, Polly. You’ll have to take it off and 
shake it up again ; you can’t smooth it over and 
make it look right. Shirking is shirking no matter 
whether it comes out in the affairs of life or in mak- 
ing a bed. It shows a lack of character that is de- 
plorable ! There, now see if you can put that up 
smoothly, the way it should have been at first.” 



SHE SMOOTHED THE BED-SPREAD WITH SPECIAL CARE 




CHAPTER XIII 


FIREWORKS 

Fourth of July was a flawless day. Polly, 
with face upturned to the sky, while the dew still 
lay thick on the grass, could not And so much as a 
fleck of white on the deep blue arch. The garden 
was lovely in the early morning, with only the twit- 
tering of birds and the light rustle of leaves to break 
the stillness. Polly visited all the flowers and 
picked a bunch of roses for the breakfast table. 

She was trimming off the thorns, holding her jack- 
knife in just the way Robert had taught her, when 
the boy himself appeared. Together they went out 
to the barn and for the fifth or sixth time conferred 
with Hiram as to the best place to set off the fire- 
works that evening. 

“I haven’t changed my mind a mite since we 
talked it over last night,” said Hiram, as if up to that 
time his mind had been a whifflecock. “ I say right 
close to the stone wall, on the left o’ the second 
ridge on the hill. That gives a chance for the folks 
to sit top o’ the hill, on the edge o’ the pine grove, 
sheltered from the wind if it should come up brisk, 
*33 


134 


POLL Y PRENTISS 


and with an excellent view o’ the entertainment as 
it bursts and goes up into the sky. I can’t think of 
any other spot that would be half as good.” 

“ What time is it you’re going to drive over to 
Manser Farm, Hiram ? ” asked Polly. 

“ Same time I’ve planned right along from the 
first, little girl,” said Hiram tolerantly, “ and that’s 
to leave here about five, get there about six and have 
them fetched over here by seven, while ’tis still 
light. The moon will serve me well to take them 

home, and coming back alone ” 

“ Oh, but you aren’t coming back alone ! ” cried 
Polly, “ for Aunt Hetty says if Kobert and I can be 
squeezed in we may ride over to the farm when you 
take them back, and then we three will come home 
together.” 

“ That’s better,” said Hiram cordially. “ I had 
thought maybe I’d employ that time looking back 
over my past life and seeing where I could have im- 
proved it ; moonlight always makes me sort o’ lone- 
some when I view it all by myself, but take it when 
you have good company, it’s all right.” 

“ We’ll sing except when we’re going through the 
village,” said Polly, “ our national songs, so as to be 
very patriotic. Hiram, have you learned a new 
piece to recite to us to-night before the fireworks ? ” 
“ Ho, I haven’t got ’round to it,” said Hiram. “ I 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


135 


hunted through all the collections we have on hand, 
but I couldn’t find anything that I thought would 
give general satisfaction. Our boarder’s taste, now 
— I don’t feel certain what sort of poetical work 
she’d be most likely to favor, if any. And on the 
whole I think the fireworks will be about all I can 
attend to. Let’s just run over the setting-off pro- 
gram as I put it down yesterday, and see if ’tis all 
right, and no changes desired. W e start off with that 
fire o’ rockets surrounding the Liberty Bell. We’re 
all agreed that’s the best beginning, aren’t we ? ” 

That evening Mrs. Leeds had on a beautiful gown 
in which red silk shone through a sparkling over- 
dress that made Polly think of a shower of silver 
stars. She had ventured to praise it when she was 
hooking up the waist and Mrs. Leeds had received 
her compliment quite graciously. 

“You notice pretty things quickly,” she said in 
her crisp way, but Polly knew she was not offended. 
“ I’ve put this on just to please Hester Pomeroy and 
because she says that old woman — Mrs. Barnsley, 
if that’s her name — would like to see it. It’s really 
too gay for a woman of my age. I shall probably 
give it away next year.” 

“ Oh,” cried Polly, “ is there — had you planned to 
give it to any particular person, Mrs. Leeds ? ” 

“ No, I hadn’t,” and the keen eyes searched her 


POLLY PRENTISS 


136 

face. “ I never thought of giving it away till this 
minute, but I can tell you one thing, and that is 
it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to wear at any 
time. Children have no sense of what’s appropriate.” 

Polly’s face was crimson, and she threw her head 
back indignantly. Then suddenly she remembered 
if she lost her temper now, or rather if she let Mrs. 
Leeds see that she had lost it, all her work might go 
for nothing. She swallowed hard before she spoke. 

“ I was thinking of Mrs. Ramsdell,” she said, her 
voice not quite so steady as she would have liked to 
make it. “ She would be happy all the rest of her 
days, she says, if she could have one handsome 
dress.” 

“ Where would the old creature wear it ? ” asked 
Mrs. Leeds, staring at Polly. 

“ She’d wear it over here,” said Polly, her face 
very gentle as she thought of her old friend, “ and 
when we go over there for a party, she’d wear it 
then.” 

“ And what would the other two old women say ? 
and the wife of the man who runs the place, that 
family connection of yours?” asked Mrs. Leeds 
curiously. “ You must be crazy, child, to think of 
such a thing, even if I considered it for a moment — 
which I don’t.” 

Polly bit her lip as she remembered Mrs. Manser, 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


137 


who for the moment had slipped her mind ; but then 
Mrs. Manser would be at Greenby ; the smart young 
man’s wife (yet to be discovered) might think a dark 
red silk shining through silver stars the most appro- 
priate garb in the world for a little old lady with 
bright black eyes and a wintry glow in her cheeks. 

“ We-el,” said Polly slowly, “ perhaps it wouldn’t 
be best for her to have it, Mrs. Leeds, but how she 
would love it ! ” 

“I suppose I shall need a wrap up on that hill 
where I understand we are to be put to see the fire- 
works,” said Mrs. Leeds, by way of answer. “ For- 
tunately I have one that goes well with this gown,” 
and from one of her trunks she brought out a shawl 
of red and silver, which seemed to Polly spun of 
cobwebs. 

“ Oh, it won’t be cold on the hill,” she breathed, 
gazing delightedly at this vision, “ but if you’d just 
wear that, Mrs. Leeds, you’ll look like a fairy 
princess.” 

“ It goes over the head, this way — see, child — and 
then drapes about the shoulders,” explained Mrs. 
Leeds. It was not in human nature to resist Polly’s 
ingenuous compliments, and a slight flush tinted the 
thin cheeks against which the lovely gauze lay in soft 
folds. 

Mrs. Leeds was feeling at her best, and Robert was 


POLLY PRENTISS 


138 

moved to unwilling admiration when he saw her as 
she stepped out on the porch and seated herself by 
Miss Pomeroy to await the guests. 

“ She looks like a haughty somebody or other in a 
book,” he said grudgingly to Polly. u I hope she 
won’t scare Grandma Manser and Aunty Peebles. 
There’s no danger of Mrs. Ramsdell’s being afraid of 
her ; that’s one good thing. It takes more than fine 
clothes and icy manners to have any effect on her. 
And I think we can rely on your Uncle Blodgett to 
stay calm, although I see she has her lorgnette on. 
I suppose that is so she can stun the visitors back into 
their proper places in case they overstep the mark 
she has set for them.” 

Polly’s only answer was a soft giggle which, as it 
had been caused by his own words, Robert evidently 
felt needed no reproof. A few moments later 
Hiram drove up to the porch with the guests in the 
comfortable three-seated wagon which made fre- 
quent journeys between Pomeroy Oaks and Manser 
Farm. 

“We’ll sit here for a little while,” said Miss 
Hetty, when she had greeted the guests and intro- 
duced them one and all to Mrs. Leeds. “ When 
Hiram is ready for us to go up on the knoll Robert 
will blow the horn. Polly, see if Grandma Manser 
would like another cushion in that chair.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


139 


u No, dearie, this is beautiful just as it is,” said the 
sweet-faced little old woman when Polly urged the 
advantages of a down pillow. “ Nothing could be 
more comfortable. And Miss Peebles looks just as I 
feel.” 

“ It’s like the 4 beds o’ flowery ease ’ in the hymn,” 
said Aunty Peebles from the depths of her cushioned 
rocking-chair, “ and the drive over was lovely. Mr. 
Blodgett remarked that he’d never seen a finer 
night.” 

“Not in my recollection,” said Uncle Blodgett, 
gazing around him with much satisfaction. “ I ex- 
pect you find it a great privilege to be in such a de- 
lightful spot, ma’am,” he said genially to Mrs. 
Leeds. 

That lady had been having a brisk although quiet 
passage-at-arms with Mrs. Ramsdell. Having raised 
her lorgnette to survey the old woman of whom she 
had heard so much, she was struck dumb with 
amazement to see Mrs. Ramsdell place on her nose a 
pair of gold-rimmed spectacles from which the glass 
had long since disappeared. Her eyes staring 
through the empty gold rims were so disconcerting 
that Mrs. Leeds dropped her lorgnette and gave an 
embarrassed cough. 

“ If you can get on without that I can get on 
without these,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, calmly detach- 


140 


POLLY PRENTISS 


ing the gold bows from her hair in which they had 
caught, and replacing the glassless spectacles in an 
old leather case which she put in the bag she always 
carried wherever she went. “ Nice weather we’re 
having, isn’t it ? ” 

It was just at that moment that Uncle Blodgett 
turned from Polly and addressed his question to 
.Mrs. Leeds. She looked from Mrs. Ramsdell to the 
old man as if the two old people were in a con- 
spiracy. 

“ I hadn’t thought of it in the light of a privilege,” 
she said shortly to Uncle Blodgett and then, her gaze 
returning to Mrs. Ramsdell, she added, “ The 
weather is well enough.” 

Mrs. Ramsdell laughed and shrugged her shoulders 
as she eyed her antagonist. 

“ Oh, I’m not responsible for it,” she said gaily ; 
“ you don’t need to feel any burden o’ gratitude to 
me, ma’am, on that account or any other.” 

Miss Hetty was endeavoring to make things agree- 
able for Mrs. Manser who, as usual, was complaining 
of ill-health, w T hile her husband stood by, beaming 
with good-nature but rather uncomfortable as her 
plaint went on and on. 

“ I don’t know as I’ll be able to get up the rise of 
that little hill,” mourned the guest. “ It’s my limbs 
that the pain is in mostly now. It’s trotting, trot- 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


141 

ting all day to wait on the old folks, that uses me up. 
When we’re settled over in Greenby I expect to have 
help and be able to save my own strength. I’ve 
been working beyond it, way beyond it, for years.” 

Unfortunately Mrs. Ramsdell, fresh from her vic- 
tory over Mrs. Leeds, heard the last words, and 
turned abruptly on the speaker. 

“ Humph ! ” she said clearly, and then lest it might 
have failed to carry to all the group she repeated it, 
“ Humph ! ” 

At that moment when it seemed as if there might 
be trouble brewing, came the welcome sound of the 
horn, and Polly jumped to her feet. 

“ There, Hiram is all ready for us to go ! ” she 
said joyously. “The chairs are up there, but I’ll 
take some extra cushions so we’ll be sure and have 
enough.” 

As they walked around the house and over the 
short grass up the gentle slope of the hill, Mrs. Rams- 
dell stepped close to Mrs. Leeds and took a fold of 
her wrap between an appraising thumb and fore- 
finger. 

“That’s a nice piece o’ goods,” she said conde- 
scendingly, “ and it’s a new material to me, too. 
About how much would that cost a yard, or was it 
a present to you ? ” 

Mrs. Leeds turned a cold gaze upon her questioner, 


142 


POLLY PRENTISS 


but in the soft twilight its effect, she knew, was 
nearly if not quite lost ; and suddenly she felt a 
slight stirring of sympathy for the little old woman 
beside her, so full of eager interest in the things she 
could never possess, so rebellious at the lot assigned 
her. 

“ I didn’t buy it by the yard,” she said not un- 
pleasantly. “The whole thing came together. I 
bought it in India, and it cost what would be about 
thirty dollars here.” 

“You don’t tell me you’ve been in India ! ” cried 
Mrs. Ramsdell. “ Just you wait till Sam’l Blodgett 
hears that. Mr. Blodgett ! Mr. Blodgett ! you step 
back here a minute, and listen to me. Mrs. Leeds, 
that’s walking right along beside me up this hill, 
has been to the ends o’ the earth ! She’s been to 
India ! ” 

“ I’m proud to know you, ma’am,” said Uncle 
Blodgett, and held out his hand ; the hand of Mrs. 
Leeds was perhaps a trifle slow in grasping it, but of 
that Uncle Blodgett recked nothing ; he seized her 
fingers and wrung them heartily before he let 
them go. 

Later on, when the glory of the Liberty Bell had 
burst upon his vision and vanished, w r hen George 
Washington’s features had blazed against the sky 
and faded, when a ship under full sail, a waving 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


143 


flag, a gallant soldier, and several other set pieces 
beside a bewildering display of rockets had come 
and gone, Uncle Blodgett moved over to Mrs. Leeds 
and spoke with the greatest deference. 

“ How do they celebrate the Fourth o’ July in 
India, ma’am ? ” he asked. “ Come to think of it, 
I suppose they just let it pass, maybe. But when 
they have their times that I’ve read of — what they 
call their Durbar, I believe, what sort of doings in 
the way of fireworks do they have? I’ve always 
understood that anything they undertake they carry 
out most artistic. Seems to me this is about as fine 
as anything in this line could be, but I suppose you 
may have seen things that would put it way into 
the shade.” 

He was so eager, so hopeful and withal so defer- 
ential that for the second time that evening Mrs. 
Leeds hesitated and when she spoke her tone was 
almost gentle. 

“ If they ever have any better fireworks in India 
than these have been, I’ve never seen them,” she 
said, and Uncle Blodgett chuckled with delight. 

“ I thought it might be so,” he said, “ fireworks be- 
ing a kind of American institution. But there must 
be plenty of other things, ma’am, that we haven’t 
anything to compare with. Maybe some time while 
you’re here you and I could have a little conversa- 


144 


POLLY PRENTISS 


tion and exchange reminiscences of our traveling 
days. I was in Mexico way back in the middle o’ 
the last century and I’ve careered ’round consider- 
able in my time. I take it you never went whale- 
fishing, ma’am ? ” 

“ Mercy on us, what is the man thinking of ! ” 
and Mrs. Leeds was astonished into a laugh before 
she knew it. “ Of course I never did.” 

“I thought likely not,” said Uncle Blodgett. 
“ Well, some day when it comes right I’ll tell you 
my experience whale-fishing and you tell me about 
India. I think there are probably a good many 
stories of adventure we could match up, ma’am, you 
and I, our lines having been cast in different spots. 
You take my arm and let me beau you down this hill.” 

Divided between ire and amusement, but with the 
latter uppermost in spite of herself, Mrs. Leeds took 
the arm offered her and suffered herself to be guided 
down the hill by this surprising old man who was so 
unconscious of giving offense that she really did not 
know how to set about correcting him. 

“ I did not mind so much for once, Hester,” she 
told Miss Pomeroy when the guests had departed, 
Polly and Robert with them, “ but of course I should 
not be willing to do it often. Why, it would be per- 
fectly hopeless to try to put that old Mr. Blodgett 
where he belongs, or Mrs. Ramsdell.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


145 


“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Maria,” said 
Miss Hetty with apparent irrelevance, “ for I know 
you did. The four old people are coming over to 
spend the afternoon next week. Mr. Blodgett confi- 
dently expects to hear all about India, and Mrs. 
Ramsdell said she should ask you to show her all 
your clothes. She said to me, ‘ That woman’s a 
living example of the fact that because you’re past 
fifty you don’t need to look like a meal sack or a 
pea-pod according to the way you’re built. I never 
saw such good-setting clothes in all my days, and if 
she has a waist pattern I’m going to borrow it.’ ” 

Miss Hetty waited for a response, but it was long 
in coming. At last Mrs. Leeds made it, as she rose 
slowly from her chair. 

“ Poor unsatisfied old creature,” she said. “ I 
know just how she feels; it doesn’t happen to be 
clothes that I covet, but the principle’s the same. 
How I’m going to bed. Good-night, Hester.” 

“ Good-night,” said Miss Hetty. She did not ask 
what it was that Mrs. Leeds could covet, for she was 
quite sure she knew. 


CHAPTER XIY 


MES. LEEDS HELPS 

July ran its length with sun and rain, with 
happy days and some lonely ones for Polly. When 
Robert went away he left a gap in the household, 
and when a week later Miss Hetty went off for a 
five days’ trip in her brother’s automobile it seemed 
to the little girl as if the stillness that settled on 
Pomeroy Oaks would never be broken. 

“ I keep forgetting and running to the parlor to 
tell her things,” Polly confided to Mrs. Leeds one 
morning when the work had gone quite smoothly ; 
“ and when I get there it seems as if all the furniture 
and the clock and even the china shepherdess on the 
mantel just stood there, waiting and saying to me, 
‘ She isn’t here ! she isn’t here ! ’ Oh, it’s so lone- 
some without her ! ” 

“ You really are fond of her, aside from all she 
has done for you, I think,” said Mrs. Leeds, who sat 
turning the leaves of a new magazine which Polly 
was presently to read to her. “ Of course most of 
the affection in this world is the direct result of 
benefits received, and it is seldom lasting at that,” 
she added bitterly. 


146 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


H7 


Polly’s eyes grew big with wonder and pity. To 
have lived as long as Mrs. Leeds and to make such 
a great mistake about people ! It seemed too sad to 
be true. 

“ Oh, but it can’t be that way, really, except once 
in a great while,” said Polly, going close to Mrs. 
Leeds in her earnestness. “ Aunt Hetty says if you 
give people love, they’re sure to give it back to you, 
sooner or later — just sure to ! And of course when 
once you love anybody nothing changes your feel- 
ing, except to make it bigger and bigger. I was 
grateful to Aunt Hetty, always, from the very first, 
but when I began to love her it was because, 

why ” Polly spread her arms wide and let 

them fall, conscious that here was something too 
great to be explained by mere words. “ It was be- 
cause I began to know her and I couldn’t help it,” 
she ended softly. 

Mrs. Leeds sat looking out of the window, her 
face turned away from Polly, who went about her 
work, dusting with the scrupulous care she had 
learned to take of all her boarder’s belongings. 

“She’s coming home day after to-morrow,” said 
Polly a few moments later, “ and then in ten days 
the rummage sale begins, and the summer will be 
half over. Oh, Mrs. Leeds, such lots and lots of 
nice things have been promised for the sale ! Mrs. 


143 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Talcott has such lovely ones, almost as good as new 
and a great many just as good as new. And Mrs. 
Hunter and Mrs. Hale both have ever so many fine 
contributions, too. I have to try to remember Mrs. 
Hale’s every time, because Mrs. Hunter is sure to 
ask me about them. I don’t see why she doesn’t 
ask Mrs. Hale, but she is such a busy person she 
says she hardly goes over her own threshold except 
to church, and of course she doesn’t see Mrs. Hale 
there.” 

“ The minister didn’t succeed in his hopes for 
giving up his strawberry festival after all,” said Mrs. 
Leeds. “ It was foolish for him to think all his own 
people would change their plans, even if a few of 
them were willing to do it. He’s young, that Mr. 
Endicott of yours — he’ll learn wisdom with years.” 

Polly’s forehead puckered. It seemed to her that 
when people spoke of wisdom in this way it was 
never a very cheerful outlook ; for her part she hoped 
Mr. Endicott would not learn it. 

“ He thinks perhaps next year the two churches 
will plan to have the festival in Town Hall,” she 
said, “and everybody would go to it. This year 
the painter couldn’t make the repairs just at that 
time, he said, so there wasn’t really any excuse for 
giving up our festival.” 

“ M-m,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ I wonder if he 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


149 


wouldn’t have managed to make the repairs at that 
time if he hadn’t been a member of your church, 
and his wife very active. I happen to know that 
they could have sold their strawberries to your 
Aunt Hetty and others for preserving and cleared 
the money just as well if they’d chosen.” 

Polly hesitated, for she knew there was more than 
a grain of truth in this statement, but she could not 
bear to have the friends who were all so kind to her 
severely criticized. 

“Well,” and Mrs. Leeds looked at her with that 
curious half -smile with which she had come to re- 
gard Polly most of the time, “ what have you to 
say in their defense, child ? I can see you’re burn- 
ing to say something.” 

“ It’s only that the strawberry festival is fun,” 
said Polly, 4 4 and exciting, Mrs. Leeds. And there 
aren’t very many exciting things in Ash don.” 

“ I should say not,” remarked Polly’s boarder in 
her dryest tone. “We agree on that at any rate. 
This being rather a lonely time for you, according 
to what you say, how would you like to have me 
open the box that has the things I intend to give to 
your rummage sale ? ” 

“ Oh, I’d love it ! ” cried Polly. “ Will you, Mrs. 
Leeds ? ” 

“ After dinner, when I’ve had my nap, come up 


POLLY PRENTISS 


ISO 

here, at four o’clock,” said Mrs. Leeds, “ and we’ll 
have a private exhibition and I’ll mark the prices on 
the things according to what they ought to bring. 
Have you ever made tags, child ? ” 

“ No’m,” said Polly, “ but I could learn if you’d 
show me.” 

“ We’ll see about that,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ At 
any rate come to my door promptly at four o’clock.” 

“ It’s just as if it were a very important concert 
or a play that I couldn’t get into if I were five 
minutes late,” Polly told Arctura as she sampled a 
fresh batch of hermits in the kitchen later in the 
morning. “I wish she would invite you to the 
private exhibition, Arctura.” 

“Well, she won’t,” and Arctura sniffed scorn- 
fully ; “ and I shouldn’t take the time to go if she 
did. I have too many things to do to waste two, 
three hours looking at old truck that she’s ready to 
cast away and thinks will be more’n good enough 
for Ashdon folks. But I’m glad you’re going,” she 
finished in a more amiable tone, “ and you can tell 
me all about it if it’s worth while. If she should 
happen to have any little trinket that you like the 
looks of, you tell her you know of a purchaser for it, 
and you’d like it reserved. I’m going to that rum- 
mage sale, and I’m going to buy something of that 
woman and require her to make change for me. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


151 

She can wait on me for once, and I’ll say ‘ Thank 
you 5 to her, loud and clear, which is more than she’s 
ever done to me.” 

“She thinks your cooking is perfectly splendid, 
Arctura,” said Polly, to whom Miss Green’s attitude 
toward her boarder was an underlying discomfort 
every day, although she thought that Mrs. Leeds 
had never taken enough notice of the faithful hand- 
maiden to realize her dislike. “ She didn’t say it in 
just those words, but I know that’s what she thinks.” 

“ I’ll wager she didn’t say it in those words,” re- 
marked Arctura, hurling cookies into a crock with 
reckless hand. “ Just barely opens her lips to me 
when she speaks and looks right over my head when 
she has occasion to ask me for anything. If she 
treats the help in the hotels where she goes that 
way, she must make ’em love her. And if it hadn’t 
been for Miss Hetty’s explaining to her that I 
wouldn’t stay in the house to have such treatment 
she’d have been giving me money ! ” exploded 
Arctura wrathfully. “ Me ! — sticking a dollar bill 
under her plate and leaving it there for me to get 
when I cleared off the table ! I was never madder 
in my life.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t know she had done that ! ” exclaimed 
Polly. “ How could she ? ” 

“She could well enough, and she did,” said 


152 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Arctura, “ but I went right to Miss Hetty — ’twas 
one night you were over at Manser Farm — and I 
said, 4 Here’s something for you to settle ; either she 
stops this kind of thing or else I’ll take my duds 
and go off on a visit and stay till she’s gone, boarder 
or no boarder, old folks or no old folks,’ I said. 
And Miss Hetty saw to it right away. I didn’t in- 
tend you should know anything about it, and here 
I’ve blurted it all out ! ” 

“ I’m glad you have,” said Polly with her arms 
around Arctura’s neck. 44 It’s a shame, but you see 
she wouldn’t understand how you feel, Arctura. 
Aunt Hetty told me that Mrs. Leeds has always 
thought money could buy everything, and that’s the 
way she talks.” 

44 1 know.” Arctura was winking rapidly to make 
away with her unwelcome tears. 44 Well, it’s past 
and gone now ; she won’t do that again, whatever 
else she does. But you bear it in mind about that 
trinket, won’t you ? ” 

Polly promised, and although she had no idea 
what sort of trinket Arctura desired to give her, 
she made up her mind that she would select some- 
thing from the afternoon’s display. It seemed to 
her no less than fair that Arctura should have the 
satisfaction of buying and exacting change from the 
woman who had so hurt her feelings. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


153 


“ It’s so queer,” thought Polly as she swayed 
drowsily in the hammock with Snip and Snap, wait- 
ing for the clock to strike four. “ It’s so queer that 
people don’t think about the way other people will 
think ; they just think about the way they think, 
and 

“ Dear me, I believe I’ve been asleep,” said Polly 
tumbling out of the hammock. “ I’m sure the clock 
struck something then, and probably it was four. 
I just heard the end of it. And I suppose my hair’s 
all mussed.” 

She ran into the house, smoothing her curls with 
both hands, and was relieved to find that it was only 
one minute after four. 

“ That’s being pretty prompt,” said Polly as she 
flew up the stairs. 

She knocked at Mrs. Leeds’ door, which was 
closed. It opened, and Polly gave a cry of delight. 

“You’re just like a rainbow, Mrs. Leeds!” she 
said breathlessly. “ There’s every color, isn’t 
there?” 

“ Oh, no, not every color,” said Polly’s boarder, 
over whose dress lay little silk scarfs of many 
bright and delicate shades. “ I got these very 
cheap a year or two ago from a man who had a 
small shop and failed. I thought they would do to 
send instead of Christmas cards, but when Christ' 


154 


POLLY PRENTISS 


mas came I was in no mood for sending gifts of any 
sort. 1 had an attack of lumbago,” she added re- 
sentfully. “Do you think the Ashdon girls would 
like to buy these if I marked them at twenty-five 
cents ? ” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Leeds, there wouldn’t be one of them 
left at the end of the first hour ! ” said Polly. “ Do 
you really mean to give them to the rummage sale?” 

“ I shall be glad to get rid of them ; they’ve been 
on my mind,” said Mrs. Leeds briskly. Polly had 
not seen her so pleased and animated in all the time 
she had been at Pomeroy Oaks. “ Here, child, help 
me fold them and lay them away in their boxes until 
we get the tags ready. How look over there on 
that table; there’s another lot of foolishness. I 
was overpersuaded to buy those things of a young 
Indian just because he was lame and couldn’t travel 
over the road as fast as another Indian who got 
ahead of him everywhere. What do you think of 
them ? ” 

Polly was bending over the table, her hands 
clasped behind her, looking with shining eyes at the 
array of little baskets and boxes of various shapes 
and colors spread over it. 

“You see there are work-boxes, work-baskets, 
handkerchief cases, needle cases, scissors-holders, 
thimble-holders, twine baskets — every kind of thing 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


155 


they make,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ I don’t know what 
in the world anybody would want of any of them, 
but I can’t have them filling up my trunk any more. 
Do you think they would sell, say from ten cents up 
to fifty ? ” 

Polly’s eyes were fastened on a small round basket 
of sweet grass through the meshes of which a wide 
pink strip was woven. She touched it with the tips 
of her fingers! 

“ I know somebody who would like to have that 
reserved, if it is not too expensive,” said Polly. “ It’s 
a sort of commission she gave me to choose some- 
thing for her.” 

“ One of your schoolmates, I suppose,” said Mrs. 
Leeds. “ Children do so love to make a mystery of 
things. She can have it for twenty-five cents ; that 
would be a fair price, according to what I paid for 
it. We’ll tag it and mark it sold. I take it you 
think these would have a good sale from your ex- 
pression.” 

“ They would go, as Mrs. Ramsdell says, ‘ like hot 
cakes,’ ” and Polly sighed with pleasure. “ How 
may I help make the tags ? Mrs. Leeds, you could 
almost have the rummage sale all by yourself, only 
these things are so pretty and fresh everybody will 
know there’s no rummage about them, really.” 

“ I shouldn’t wish to have a sale all by myself,” 


156 


POLLY PRENTISS 


asserted Mrs. Leeds, and she looked at Polly shrewdly. 
“ And you know I shouldn’t, what’s more,” she said. 
“ You haven’t danced attendance on me for the last 
month without knowing that what I like best is to 
tell other people how to do a thing, and then watch 
them do it. I expect I shall make all three of those 
women on your committee wish I’d never been born 
before we get through with that sale, but I shall 
have a good time out of it, and what’s more we’ll 
make money. Now help me clear this table, and 
bring me that package of stiff white paper from the 
top shelf in the closet, and the two pairs of scissors 
from my work-stand. Are your hands perfectly 
clean ? ” 

“ Oh, yes’m,” said Polly, with scarlet cheeks, for 
she was fastidiously careful about the use of soap 
and water even if she was not a model of neatness 
otherwise. 

“Ver y good,” said Mrs. Leeds coolly; “you 
needn’t flare up about it. In my experience hands 
are not always clean, by any means. Take the 
ruler and make a line across that sheet of paper just 
half an inch from the edge, and don’t screw your 
mouth all out of shape while you’re doing it.” 


CHAPTEE XV 


AT THE FARM 

Miss Hetty had come home. Polly had rejoiced 
over her, and had told her all that had happened 
during her absence, ending with a shy confidence 
which pleased Miss Pomeroy greatly. 

“ I think, Aunt Hetty,” Polly told her at the end 
of her recital of happenings, “ I truly do think that 
Mrs. Leeds and I are almost friends ; at any rate, 
we’re ever so much nearer being friends than we 
were when you went away. Of course she looks at 
me just as sharply as ever, and she doesn’t approve 
of my ways, I suppose, and she doesn’t like my being 
adopted, but she does smile at me once in a while, 
and her smile isn’t nearly as stiff as it was, because 
she’s using it more, and she was very kind about the 
things for the rummage sale, wasn’t she ? I think 
perhaps Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hunter will like her.” 

“ They’ll be too busy to spend much time thinking 
whether they like her or not,” said Miss Hetty. 
“ From what I hear, Polly, this sale of yours will be 
a very lively enterprise.” 

*57 


POLLY PRENTISS 


I 5 8 

“ Oh, it isn’t mine,” said Polly, earnestly. “ All I 
did was just to think of it and go to the selectmen 
and their wives; everybody else has been doing 
things since then while I’ve been staying here at 
home. Aunt Hetty, don’t you think it will be fun 
for Robert to have the rummage push-cart outside, 
like the one he saw at their fair at home ? The boys 
would ever so much rather buy of him outdoors, and 
it will be pretty crowded inside, I think. Robert 
wrote me about it, and said his father told him he’d 
be glad to lend him to us for two or three days 
again, 4 the object being worthy,’ and it would be a 
chance for him to show his business instinct. He’s 
going to bring a lot of jack-knives and some mechan- 
ical toys he’s had for a long time, and wire puzzles — 
oh, he said he had a big bagful to contribute.” 

“ It’s a very good idea,” said Miss Hetty promptly, 
“ and I’m glad Robert thought of it. Polly, have 
you found your strong young man and his wife yet ? 
You know the time when Mr. and Mrs. Manser are 
to go to Green by is coming closer and closer. I be- 
lieve they have to be there by the first of September 
to take charge.” 

“No, I haven’t found them,” admitted Polly, 
“ and I don’t know where to look, Aunt Hetty. 
I thought maybe — just maybe, they might be at the 
rummage sale. I think I should know them the min- 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


159 


ute I saw them ; and there will be people from miles 
around, Mrs. Talcott and the others say. Then if I 
don’t see them, and the sale makes as much money 
as everybody seems to think it will, Mrs. Leeds says 
I’d better advertise. Do you think that would be a 
good way, Aunt Hetty ? It would be pretty hard 
to say all the things I want to in an advertise- 
ment.” 

“ Some of them could wait until you saw the per- 
sons who answered the advertisement,” said Miss 
Hetty thoughtfully. “ I suppose Mrs. Manser is as 
anxious as ever to get away.” 

“ Why, I don’t know,” Polly answered slowly. 
“ When Uncle Blodgett came over day before yes- 
terday he said Mrs. Manser had begun to talk about 
being ‘ thrust out from the home of many years.’ 
And he said she had fried chicken for them the day 
before, and that she kept speaking about what she 
might do for them next winter ‘ with more funds at 
her back ’ and then catching herself up. Isn’t it 
queer, Aunt Hetty ? ” 

“ Hot so very queer, after all,” said Miss Pomeroy. 
“ How that she feels people are interested in keeping 
Manser Farm in the town as town property, she be- 
gins to see that it has some advantages ; and beside, 
it is her home, after all.” 

“ And Mrs. Downer has seen another farm near 


i6o 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Greenby that she likes very much better,” said Polly. 
“ Hiram told me last night. Aunt Hetty, doesn’t it 
seem as if things came out right, after all, if you 
just helped them a little bit ? ” 

Miss Hetty smiled and agreed with her. And 
the next day when she met little Mrs. Downer in 
Ashdon village she smiled again. Mrs. Downer had 
fluffy hair and a gushing manner, but what she said 
pleased Miss Hetty, nevertheless. 

“ I want to tell you why I’ve changed my mind 
and made Hate change his about buying Manser 
Farm, even if we could buy it, about which they 
say there’s some doubt,” she began. “ Miss 
Pomeroy, it isn’t because the farm is a lonely place, 
for while we’re there we could fill it with people 
and never have a quiet minute. But since I’ve been 
away I’ve seen an old uncle of mine, and he’s just 
devoted to the place he lives in, though it’s not at 
all attractive or desirable, and it would break his 
heart to be moved from it. He even loves the leaks 
in the roof and the shabby things about the place, I 
believe. And the day after I came home I went to 
Manser Farm, and out in the place they call a garden 
I found those three old people, Mrs. Ramsdell, Miss 
Peebles and Mr. Blodgett, looking at their flowers, 
and picking some for that little girl of yours.” 

She paused for a moment and her pretty, girlish 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


161 

face took on an expression which made it really 
charming. 

“I could have stood the way Mrs. Ramsdell 
looked at me, perhaps,” she said, “ although it was 
pitiful after all, back of her rage, but the other 
two ! I just couldn’t bear to remember their eyes 
afterward. I could never live and sleep and eat in 
that house after they’d been turned out — never ! I 
went home and cried quarts , and I told Nate he 
must find another farm if he was bound to have one 
in this region. If you could have heard Mr. Blod- 
gett thank me for letting them stay through an- 
other year, ‘if funds could be raised sufficient to 
warrant the town in holding the place till next sum- 
mer.’ I certainly did think I should break right 
down then and there, and I flew off without seeing 
that Manser woman or saying good-bye or anything. 
You tell that pretty little Polly of yours she needn’t 
be afraid of my balking her plans.” 

“ Thank you for telling me,” said Miss Pomeroy. 
“ The old people at Manser Farm do not quite under- 
stand what is being done, and it is perhaps as well 
for them not to know all about it at present. What 
I hope is that we can make a permanent arrange- 
ment with the town by which part of the expenses of 
the farm will be guaranteed by Ashdon and the rest 
will be provided by private individuals. The old 


POLLY PRENTISS 


162 

people who are there now may live a good many 
years yet, and when they are gone there w r ill surely 
be others left alone in the world to whom shelter and 
care in old age would be a blessing. The house is 
well built and one of the oldest anywhere about 
here. I have several plans in regard to it, of which 
I haven’t yet told Polly. I should like to consult 
your husband about one of them. You remember 
the old chimney ” 

There was a long conversation after that, but 
what came of it was not known to Polly until weeks 
afterward. 

Over at Manser Farm there was an air of pleasant 
bustle on the morning of the day when the rummage 
sale was to open. At nine o’clock Mrs. Manser 
stepped out on the porch and looked at the little 
company assembled there. Grandma Manser sat 
placidly knitting but Mrs. Ramsdell, Miss Peebles 
and Mr. Blodgett were dressed for driving and all 
wore a look of suppressed excitement. 

“ It’s a real good day for the sale, I will say that 
much,” remarked Mrs. Manser as she surveyed the 
old people with a critical eye. “ If it wasn’t that 
I’m just getting rid of my rheumatic troubles for the 
first time in months I should wish I was going along 
with you ; as ’tis, grandma and I will keep each other 
company. Somebody always has to be left out when 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 63 

it comes to junketings, and we might as welL be the 
ones.” 

For a moment she looked lugubrious, but then as the 
old carriage driven by Mr. Manser came out from the 
barn, she became once more comparatively cheerful. 

“You’ve each got your money in a safe place, 
I hope,” she said to Mrs. Eamsdell and Aunty 
Peebles. “ There’s nothing like an under-pocket, to 
my mind, but you both feel differently, I see ; well, 
it’s yours to lose if you like; folks that risk good 
money in hand-bags are more venturesome than ever 
I was, but every one to his own taste. Those dollar 
bills were your present, not mine. I suppose more’n 
likely Samuel Blodgett’s is loose in his pocket.” 

“ He has it in his wallet,” Mrs. Ramsdell flung 
over her shoulder, as she descended the steps, im- 
patient to be off. “As you’ll allow, Mrs. Leeds 
gave us this money to spend, to help Polly out in 
her sale. As she said to me last time we were over, 
‘ The more purchasers, the more impressed outsiders 
that happen to drop in will be.’ She’s a woman of 
great sense. She doesn’t hold to inside pockets for 
an occasion such as this any more’n I do. We aren’t 
likely to meet up with a highwayman on the way, 
and when we’re in the hall, I’d look pretty, wouldn’t 
I, fishing down into a petticoat to get out my 
money. This bag that was my last birthday present 


POLLY PRENTISS 


164 

from Polly has a safety snap, and when it’s on my 
arm, so, nobody could open it unless they tore my 
elbow to pieces. And the same with Miss Peebles. 
Here, Father Manser, you just give me a hand up. 
I’m proposing to sit on the front seat along with 
you and I don’t know but I shall speak to handle 
the reins part o’ the time. I feel real reckless this 
morning.” 

“ It seems nice to have ’em go off that way, and 
know they’re coming home again, by and by, with 
news to tell us,” said Grandma Manser, letting her 
knitting fall to her lap as she watched the old 
carriage out of sight. “I don’t know how I’m 
going to manage without them in a new place 
exactly, and yet of course I wouldn’t want you and 
my son to be somewhere else while I stayed here. 
And as I understand Polly she hasn’t found the 
right ones to take charge of the farm next winter, 
yet. She seems to think there’s going to be money 
enough for all needs and more, but if she can’t find 
any caretakers I don’t know what she will do. She 
thinks neither Mrs. Eamsdell nor Aunty Peebles nor 
Mr. Blodgett are worrying about it, because they 
don’t let her see — but they are worrying. Seems 
too bad. I kind o’ wish I could divide my time, if 
the farm is kept open. Do you think I could?” 
she asked wistfully. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


165 

Grandma Manser’s deafness and the fact that her 
eyes were still turned toward the gap in the bushes 
through which she had caught the last glimpse of 
the carriage made her slow to realize what was 
going on beside her. When at last an unmistakable 
sound reached her ears, she rose and stepping close 
to her daughter-in-law, laid a soft wrinkled hand on 
the down-dropped head. 

“ If you don’t want to go,” said the sweet trem- 
bling old voice, “ nobody’s going to make you, dear 
heart. If the way’s opened, you can stay right 
here. I can help considerable more than I ever 
have. I know you’ve never been over-strong, and 
it’s been hard for you here, with headaches and al], 
and only a parcel of old folks for company. I 
thought your heart was set on going — but if ’tisn’t 
so, my ! how ’t would joy me to stay right here.” 

“ You go sit down,” said Mrs. Manser in muffled 
tones. “ Don’t keep standing on your feet and get 
tired all out. I did want to go ; there wasn’t a day 
I didn’t want to, at first — and there hasn’t been a 
day for the last week that I haven’t cried over it. 
That’s made my head worse. I’ve had poor health, 
as you know, and all kind o’ troubles, but I had a 
letter from a cousin o’ mine the other day, and she’s 
in need of a home. She’d help me; she’s consider- 
able younger than I am, and one of the sort that 


POLLY PRENTISS 


166 

always make light work of everything. But there, 
I suppose the die is cast, and we’ve got to go to 
Greenby, come what may.” 

Many of her words had been lost to Grandma 
Manser, but her face, streaked with tears and still 
quivering, told a forlorn story which was easy to 
read. And her last sentence had risen to such a 
wail that Grandma Manser caught it all. 

“ I don’t believe there’s any power on earth can 
make you leave here to go over there if you don’t 
want to, dearie,” she said, patting the tear-stained 
cheek in a way which ordinarily her daughter-in- 
law would have resented. “We’ll speak to Miss 
Hetty Pomeroy about it, and see. I’m pretty sure 
it can be fixed up for you to stay right here.” 

“Maybe they won’t want me to stay, any of 
them,” wailed Mrs. Manser, her tears starting afresh. 
“Perhaps they’d rather have new folks. Father 
and I’ve done our best, but maybe they think we’ve 
failed. And they’re going to have repairs and im- 
provements, I hear. Probably they’ll prefer a new 
manager. But I’m sorry for father, good man as he 
is, whatever I may be ! ” 

Grandma Manser had been sorry for her son all 
the weeks of that summer, but now joy sang in her 
heart. She straightened her old back and her dim 
eyes brightened. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


1 67 

“ Don’t you worry, dear heart,” she said. “ New 
brooms are good, but Polly holds to old ways and 
old friends. And she’s the one that’ll set this 
straight. Now let’s shell those beans together. 
When our family come back from the sale, they’ll 
be sharp set, every one of them ; you see what a 
good dinner I’ll help you get. Why, I’m not much 
over the seventies. There’s a great deal of work 
left in me yet, you’ll see ! Now, you cheer right 
up.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


TWO OLD QUARRELS MENDED 

Never since the days of the Civil War had there 
been so much excitement in the streets of Ashdon 
as on the August morning when the rummage sale, 
posters of which had been flaunted at every available 
point of display for weeks, at last was opened. 

In the yard at the right of the schoolhouse stood 
Robert with his push-cart, and by ten o’clock that 
morning the crowd of purchasers that had gathered 
hid both cart and vender from the gaze of the general 
public. Mrs. Ramsdell, alighting from the farm 
carriage, swept the landscape with a disappointed 
air. 

“ Where’s that Robert Pomeroy and his cart Polly 
was telling me about ? ” she demanded. “ My stars ! 
you don’t mean to tell me they’re hid away in the 
midst of that mess of men and boys over there, and 
the sale only just opened. Well, never talk to me 
again about women folks being the ones to run for 
bargains ! Come, Miss Peebles, let’s us get right in 
quick as we can. I presume Sam’l Blodgett and 
1 68 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


169 

Father Manser can hardly wait to get us off their 
hands so they’ll be free to go prize-hunting along with 
the rest of the boys.” 

“ Don’t you worry about us,” commanded Uncle 
Blodgett. “ We have ready money in hand, same as 
you have, and we’ll see who’ll make the best use of 
it ; time enough to compare notes when we’re on our 
way home.” 

“ As if we should ever agree about it ! ” and 
Mrs. Ramsdell tossed her head as she took Miss 
Peebles’ arm in a firm grasp. “ Good-bye for a 
couple of hours, and don’t act any more like year- 
lings than you can help, the two of you. There’s 
Polly in the door, this minute, looking for us.” 

“ I’m so glad you’ve come early, before the things 
are all tossed around and I’m so busy doing up 
bundles I couldn’t see much of you,” said Polly as 
she ushered them into the right-hand schoolroom. 
“ Doesn’t it look pretty ? ” 

“It certain does, dear,” quavered Aunt Peebles. 
“We calculated to be among the first here, before 
the new was rubbed off, as you might say.” 

“ I hardly slept a wink all last night,” said Mrs. 
Ramsdell, her eyes snapping. “Who’d ever think 
this was a room where education had been carried 
on for years ! Nothing but that piece of blackboard 
that shows underneath those shawls that have been 


170 


POLLY PRENTISS 


pinned up to remind folks this was once the seat o’ 
learning. Who’s in charge o’ those shawls ? or 
aren’t they for sale ? ” 

“ Every single thing in both of the rooms is for 
sale,” said Polly. “ Mrs. Hunter is the one who had 
those shawls given her, Mrs. Kamsdell. She and 
Mrs. Hale decided to pin them up there to show 
them off well. Aren’t they pretty ? ” 

“ She and Mrs. Hale ! How long since ? ” inquired 
Mrs. Kamsdell. “ The lion and the lamb, as I live !” 

“ What do you mean, please, Mrs. Kamsdell ? ” 
asked Polly in bewilderment. “ They pinned them 
up about an horn 1 ago. They asked if I didn’t think 
it would be a good place, and I thought it would be 
lovely.” 

“Well, of all things, do you hear that?” mur- 
mured Mrs. Kamsdell to Miss Peebles as Polly 
moved away for a moment. “ They don’t look as 
if they’d been on speaking terms this morning, do 
they ? Just as far apart as they can get. I’ll wager 
they both spoke to Polly and not a word to each 
other. Listen to ’em now ; depend on it, that’s the 
way it was.” 

“Polly,” Mrs. Hale was saying, “what do you 
think of putting these aprons over that extension 
clothes-horse, if it isn’t needed for something else. 
They’d show off real well, and the clothes-horse 


KEEPS A PROMISE I/I 

could be tagged ‘ sold ’ if anybody bought it. That 
is if there’s no reason against it.” 

“Polly, this clothes-horse looks kind of bare to 
me,” spoke up Mrs. Hunter briskly. “ If agreeable 
to Mrs. Hale, suppose you and ISTettie hang some of 
those aprons over it. I think ’twould be an improve- 
ment to the appearance of our room.” 

“Here, children, you carry these across to Mrs. 
Hunter and let her make her choice,” said Mrs. 
Hale, handing a pile of gay checked and striped 
aprons to the two helpers. “Nettie, you tell your 
mother to choose freely, for I don’t care how few I 
have left here, there are so many other things.” 

“ There, Polly, you return those to Mrs. Hale and 
say I’ve taken more than I need for the present,” 
said Mrs. Hunter a few minutes later. 

Polly, running back and forth between the two 
long counters which had been placed at opposite 
sides of the schoolroom, felt a little oppressed by the 
extreme politeness of the two women toward each 
other, but Nettie giggled when the clothes-horse had 
been lavishly decorated and the final transfer of 
aprons had been effected. 

“ Isn’t it funny to hear mother and Mrs. Hale go 
on ? ” she whispered to Polly. “ They think we 
don’t know anything about it. If I acted that way 
with any of the girls mother’d say what I needed 


172 


POLLY PRENTISS 


was a good spanking, and she was sorry I was too 
big for it.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” said Polly, wdde- 

eyed and puzzled. “Aren’t they Oh, Nettie, 

here come a lot of people. Will you just let me run 
into the other room one minute with Mrs. Ramsdell 
and Miss Peebles ? I’ll have to be very busy now, 
sooner than I expected, and I’d like to see their faces 
when they look at Mrs. Leeds’ table ; it is so pretty. 
I won’t be gone but a minute, and nobody can be 
ready to have a bundle done up before that.” 

In the other room Mrs. Talcott and Mrs. Leeds 
had arranged things to the latter’s liking, and very 
pretty they looked. Mrs. Talcott was a sweet-tem- 
pered woman who had never been known to have a 
dispute with any one, and Mrs. Leeds had promptly 
selected her as roommate the day before, thereby 
throwing the other two women together. 

“ Mrs. Talcott’s things and mine will make good 
foils for one another,” she said after an exhaustive 
survey of all the contributions gathered at the school- 
house, over which the chief of police mounted guard 
during the night, “just as if we were a den of 
thieves,” one dubious citizen had said. 

“ Yes, we will take the room at the left, where 
there is better ventilation,” Mrs. Leeds had an- 
nounced calmly. “ I’ve noticed that country women 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 73 

as a rule care very little for fresh air, whereas I’m 
dependent on it.” 

“Don’t consider us, I beg of you,” said Mrs. 
Hunter in a voice quivering with indignation, and 
for a brief second her eyes met those of Mrs. Hale 
without hostility. 

“ Ho indeed ; we shall do nicely in the room at 
the right, no matter whether it is stuffy or not,” 
said Mrs. Hale in a level tone. “ In point of fact 
I believe there is practically no difference between 
the rooms.” 

“We shall be glad to know you’re getting the 
south breeze in the afternoon, if there is any,” said 
Mrs. Hunter sweetly ; “ of course that’s the prevail- 
ing wind with us at this season of the year.” 

“You have to take the sun with it, but of course 
you won’t mind that,” said Mrs. Hale, and then bit 
her lip as she realized that her last words had been 
wasted on Mrs. Leeds, who was already deep in plans 
for decorating the old cracked walls. 

“I have some Japanese prints I’ll bring in to- 
morrow to cover up these dingy places,” she said 
briskly to Polly who had fortunately been outdoors 
during the battle of words. “ You be sure to re- 
mind me, child. I intend to make this old room as 
attractive as I can for the time being,” and she had 
been as good as her word. 


174 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ It’s a regular bower o’ beauty,” said Mrs. Kams- 
dell, advancing with outstretched hand to Mrs. 
Leeds. “How do you do, ma’am? Well, I should 
know we had a traveler from foreign parts with us. 
Miss Peebles, you cast your eye on that piece o’ 
goods hanging below the United States. I reckon 
the machine that wove that never saw this part o’ 
the world. From China? I might have known. 
Mrs. Talcott, I guess you’ve never been associated 
with any such enterprise as this before. Those are 
pretty mats you have. Miss Peebles, look at those 
baskets. All the arts and sciences appear to be 
represented here. Was that belt-buckle made by 
hand, ma’am ? It was ! Miss Peebles, you just 
examine the work in this little article, made by 
hand ” 

Polly left them and hurried back to the other 
room, to find it well filled. Most of the visitors 
turned to the right as they entered the schoolhouse 
from custom, for that was the room in which the 
exhibitions at the close of the year had always been 
held. 

“ Take a stranger in town and she wouldn’t realize 
there are some advantages beside ventilation to be 
sought when it comes to a rummage sale,” Mrs. 
Hunter had remarked as she and Mrs. Hale un- 
pinned a shawl, bought by a woman from Greenby 





M 




11 
I 1 



“it’s a regular bower of beauty” 






















































KEEPS A PROMISE 


*75 


within five minutes after her entering the room. 
“ There are some pocketbooks that’ll be pretty well 
flattened out before they’re carried across the way.” 

Her eyes were on the shawl and her tone was so 
impersonal that she could scarcely have been said to 
address any one. Mrs. Hale’s response was in kind. 

“ Live and learn, live and learn,” she murmured. 
“ I s’pose something might be tacked up in place of 
this. I wonder ” 

She hesitated, and then Mrs. Hunter, the more de- 
termined on amends as she had been in the past the 
more belligerent, took the reins into her own hands. 

“ Addie Hale,” she said as the folding of the shawl 
brought their faces close together, “you and I’ve 
been acting like a couple o’ foolish young ones for 
two, three years. Let’s stop it right short off now. 
I brought that hateful old quilt o’ mine to this sale 
and I’m going to put it up now, where this shawl 
hung.” 

At that moment a woman’s voice insistently de- 
manded, “ I want that other shawl ; the one next to 
that one you’ve just taken down. Mrs. Hale, I want 
that other shawl.” 

“ Very well,” said Mrs. Hale calmly. “ Will you 
help me get it down, AVvira f ” she asked in a tone 
which carried well over the room. And as they 
turned together, she added, “And my qudt will go 


176 


POLLY PRENTISS 


up in this place, for I’ve grown to hate the sight of 
it, and I know a woman who’s quilt-crazy, coming 
over from one o’ the big country places beyond 
Greenby — you see if she doesn’t buy ’em both ! 
And good riddance to ’em, I say.” 

“ I say the same,” heartily rejoined Mrs. Hunter. 
“ I wish I could know if they’re getting ahead of us 
in the other room, Addie. Doesn’t seem as if they 
could be, does it ? My ! what a press o’ people ! ” 

It was only half an hour later that Robert, edging 
his way through the crowd to the bundle table, 
made an announcement to Polly. 

“ My cart is empty,” he said in what was meant 
for a whisper, but which carried its message to 
several ears beside Polly’s. “ I’ve sold every single 
thing in it. There’s a crowd of boys camping out 
by Long Pond and they belong to a settlement club 
in New York, and they’ve bought every puzzle they 
could get hold of. Now what am I going to do ? ” 

“ You come here,” called Mrs. Hale with flushed 
cheeks. “ I hear you have a good head for figures,” 
she said when the boy had reached her side ; “ you 
take these two money boxes, Mrs. Hunter’s and 
mine, and sit right down on that stool and act as 
cashier. We’re ’most crazy, trying to make change 
and all. Do you want this sheet of paper I’ve 
figured on, or do you calculate right in your head 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


1 77 


without artificial aid ? You do ! Well, that’s a 
blessing. This is the fifth big sheet I’ve covered and 
Mrs. Hunter the same. Alvira, this young man is 
going to take charge of the financial end of the busi- 
ness here and now. Yes, ma’am,” turning again to 
a customer, “ that pair o’ gloves certainly is as good 
as new, for they’ve never been worn. They’re under 
size, bought by mistake. And your hand’s under 
size too ! How if that doesn’t show how the ways 
of Providence fit right into each other. Fifty cents 
is the price, and worth one-fifty. Thank you” 

Arctura Green, in her Sunday best, arrived at the 
schoolhouse with her brother at noon time. She 
stepped directly into the left-hand room and across 
it to Mrs. Leeds. For all the recognition that could 
be read on her face she might as well never have 
seen Mrs. Leeds before. Arrived at the table where 
the Indian baskets, now few in number, were dis- 
played, she picked up a pretty one which had a broad 
strip of pink running through the sweet grass, and 
a little tag on which was written “ reserved.” 

“I’ll take this,” said Arctura loftily, her eyes 
looking over the top of Mrs. Leeds’ head, as she 
handed her the basket. “ ’Twas chosen for me by 
Miss Polly Prentiss of Pomeroy Oaks. You can 
make change for a five dollar bill, I suppose,” and 
she tendered the crackling green paper. 


178 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Mrs. Leeds looked up, and Arctura’s eyes, suddenly 
lowered, met hers — met and held them for a mo- 
ment. Then something in the face behind the 
counter changed and gave way. 

“See here,” said Mrs. Leeds brusquely, “you 
haven’t liked me, and I haven’t liked you. You’ve 
thought I didn’t know my place, and I’ve thought 
you didn’t know yours. But I’m an older woman 
than you, and I’ve been on my feet for three hours. 
I’m about dead. Will you take my place behind 
this table and let me sit down somewhere for a 
while? The goods are all marked. You can sell 
them just as well as I can, very likely better. I 
haven’t much of a way with country people. What 
do you say ? ” 

“ Where’ll I put my hat ? ” asked Arctura. “ Will 
you take charge of it, and lend me an apron ? Folks 
in my walk o’ life can’t have new clothes every few 
weeks. I’ve got to save this suit for another year. 
You go sit down on the bench outside. Miss Hetty’s 
there. You’re just about beat out. I’m planning 
an extra good dinner for you to-night — first time 
we’ve ever had a stylish night dinner at Pomeroy 
Oaks.” 

“ That for style ! ” said Mrs. Leeds snapping her 
fingers as she walked stiffly across the room, 
Arctura’s strong arm under hers. “ And as for an 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 79 

extra dinner, woman, all your dinners are extra. I 
never ate such cooking in my life.” 

Arctura’s face turned scarlet as she deposited her 
whilom enemy beside Miss Pomeroy. 

“I prize that, knowing you’ve had experience,” 
she said, “ and I shall remember it. Miss Hetty, 
you’d better see ’t Mrs. Leeds keeps quiet a while ; 
she needs rest. I’m going to take her place. It’s all 
arranged. And when it’s convenient you’d better 
give her some o’ that iced tea out o’ the thermos 
bottle. We’ve got to bear in mind she’s not so 
rugged as some of us. I’m kind of afraid we’ve 
worked her too hard.” 

“ It’s more than a truce,” said Mrs. Leeds, half 
smiling as she looked wearily at her old friend, 
when Arctura, erect and flushed, had marched away. 
“ It was a complete surrender on my part, received 
with mercy by the conqueror.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


A GEEAT SUCCESS 

“ I don’t know as anybody ever heard of a sale 
announced for two days, and having to be closed up 
at the end of the first day on account of everything 
being sold out,” said Mrs. Hale to Mrs. Hunter at 
five o’clock that afternoon, “ but I declare I don’t see 
how there can be anybody left to come to-morrow, 
even if we had anything left to sell ! How many 
hundred folks do you think have been in this room 
to-day ? ” 

“ ’T wouldn’t surprise me to know it was up in the 
thousands,” said Mrs. Hunter gaily. “ I guess this 
day will go down in the history of Ashdon. My 
Nettie says they’re all sold out in the other room 
too, and that Pomeroy boy is in there, shut into the 
closet, counting the money. Addie, would you ever 
have believed any human being would’ve bought 
some of the things we’ve sold to-day ? There were 
some of ’em I couldn’t praise up ; I said to one 
woman when she was looking over those sleazy shirts 
that you know who sent in, I said, ‘ Those were con- 
180 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


181 


tributions and well meant, but I can’t vouch for ’em,’ 
and she said, 4 1 guess I’ll get twenty-five cents’ worth 
of good out of ’em, anyway,’ and she took the lot of 
five. Well, if they fall to pieces in the wash, they’re 
off my conscience, anyway.” 

“ ’Twas the same with me about those kimonos 
that came from you know where,” said Mrs. Hale. 
“ They looked to me as if there wasn’t a week’s wear 
in ’em ; all prettied up with ribbons that would 
string right out in no time. But they sold, just the 
same. Alvira, does it seem to you as if you heard 
bells ringing and somebody hollering, way off, or 
has my head given ’way ? ” 

Mrs. Hunter listened. 

“ ’Tis our church bell ringing,” she said, wonder- 
ingly. “ Addie, there’s trouble somewhere, true as 
this world ! It must be fire. Come, let’s see ! ” 

The two women stepped to the door and there 
they found a group of people talking excitedly to a 
small, breathless boy who had jumped from a bicycle. 

“It’s the Greenby Farm,” he shouted huskily. 
“It’s on fire and burning all to nothing. I came 
over to give the alarm so your engine would go over, 
but it’s prob’ly no use now. I fell off my wheel 
once, coming down-hill, so I lost some time. Your 
engine’s started, though.” 

“ ’Most seven miles over to the Greenby Farm,” 


182 


POLL Y PRENTISS 


said Mrs. Hale. “ If the town needed help ever so 
badly I’m afraid our Ashdon engine wouldn’t do 
much good ; ’tisn’t speedy enough over the hills.” 

“ Oh, we’ve got engines in Greenby,” panted the 
boy. “ Only they thought we ought to pass the 
compliment of asking your folks to help. The water 
supply was giving out before I started, so they said 
about all they could do was to save the people and 
the live stock and watch the buildings burn.” 

“Hot a good water-supply on a farm of that 
kind ! ” came from Mrs. Leeds in the doorway where 
she stood beside Mrs. Talcott. “ What is the town 
of Greenby thinking of ? How was the fire started, 
boy ? And where have the inmates gone ? ” 

The boy stared at her, open-mouthed. Mrs. Leeds 
raised her now seldom-used lorgnette and looked at 
him. 

“ Ho’m,” faltered the boy. “ Ho’m, they haven’t 
found out. Ho’m, they’ve gone ’most anywhere. I 
guess I’d better be getting home. I barked my 
knees when I fell off and they hurt.” 

In spite of his words he stood as if hypnotized un- 
til Mrs. Leeds released him from the spell wrought 
by her gaze. Then he mounted his wheel with a 
spring. 

“ Say, how much have you made by your sale ? ” 
he asked of Polly, who happened to be standing near 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


183 


him at the time. “ I heard somebody say ’t must be 
over a hundred dollars, but I didn’t believe ’em. I 
don’t believe any big stories till I see things right 
with my own eyes.” 

“ Then you’ll have to wait,” said Polly, “ for no- 
body knows yet ; it’s being counted now. But it’s 
over a hundred dollars, way over.” 

“ I wisht I could wait and hear the exact figgers,” 
said the boy regretfully. “ I like to carry news when 
I can get it straight. But I’m awful partic’lar about 
it. I’m just like my mother that way. Good-bye.” 

“ I know that boy,” said Mrs. Talcott ; “ it’s just 
come to me who he is. He’s Mira Cummings’s 
boy.” 

“ Well, if that’s who he is, we’d better take his 
talk with a grain of salt,” said Mrs. Hale. “ More 
than likely Greenby Farm isn’t burnt up nor any- 
where near it. I guess our men’ll be mad if they’ve 
gone over there on a wild goose chase.” 

It was nearly six o’clock when Robert, facing the 
selectmen, their wives, Mrs. Leeds, his aunt and 
Polly, made his announcement of the financial result 
of the rummage sale. 

“I’ve counted it three times to be perfectly sure,” 
said Robert who looked very grave and important. 
“We have made three hundred and twelve dollars and 
seventy-five cents .” 


184 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hunter, who had received the 
news standing, sank weakly down together on an old 
school bench. Mrs. Leeds nodded in approval, but 
without surprise, while a chorus of “ oh’s ” and 
“ ah’s ” rose from the rest of the company. 

“ You might as well own you didn’t expect to hear 
anything like that,” Mrs. Talcott challenged her 
husband. “ How did you ? ” 

“ My expectations were nowhere near such a sum,” 
owned Deacon Talcott handsomely. “ And I can’t 
see that Humber Two’s been injured a particle. 
There’s nothing but what we men folks can broom 
right out-o’-doors and no harm done. And I’ve just 
had a telephone message from my cousin over in 
Greenby about the fire ; the house isn’t burned, but 
the barn’s gone, and the ell part o’ the house got 
scorched, and the poor folks were scared almost into 
fits. It seems it was the woman who’s helper over 
there that started the fire, cleaning a waist with 
gasolene, out in the barn. She was careless some- 
way with it ; she got burned a little herself.” 

“My stars!” breathed Mrs. Hunter. “She was 
over here and bought that waist this morning. It 
had a spot on it, and I showed it to her, for I felt in 
duty bound. I said to her, 4 You’ll have to take a 
pleat if you want to hide that, for it won’t come 
out,’ I said. I didn’t deceive her one bit about it. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


185 


I could see by her countenance she had her mind 
made up, and nothing I said weighed with her. 
Well, poor thing, I’m sorry for her.” 

“A woman as foolish as that isn’t a very good 
helper for the prospective matron of Greenby Farm, 
I should say,” remarked Mrs. Leeds to Miss Pomeroy. 
“ I wonder what Mrs. Manser will say when she 
learns about it.” 

“There’s some little doubt in regard to the 
Mansers going to Greenby Farm after all, I believe,” 
said Mr. Hunter. “ I had a talk with Manser him- 
self to-day, and he says he’s afraid his wife wouldn’t 
be happy there. And if she weren’t as happy as her 
peculiar make-up will allow,” he added with a 
whimsical look at the other selectmen, “ I’m afraid 
it wouldn’t be very pleasant for the people who have 
to live there. It would be rather a dismal outlook, 
eh ! Miss Polly Prentiss, what do you think about 
it? Am I right? Come, a young lady who can 
plan and help execute an enterprise like to-day’s 
must have some word to say about this other matter, 
knowing the party referred to pretty well from some 
years of experience under the same roof.” 

Polly hesitated, and her cheeks flamed. This was 
indeed a test question. 

“ We’re waiting to hear from Miss Polly Prentiss,” 
said Deacon Talcott quietty, and at that an inspira- 


POLLY PRENTISS 


1 86 

tion came to the little girl from Pomeroy Oaks, 
formerly of Manser Farm. 

“ I don’t know anything about Greenby Farm,” 
said Polly, “ for I’ve never been there, so I couldn’t 
tell how things would be with Mrs. Manser, but I’m 
pretty sure that if we can make one or two improve- 
ments at Manser Farm and let her stay there she’d 
be happier than she’s been for ever so long ; and I do 
know that she’s afraid of fire and of not having 
enough water more than of anything else in this 
world, for she’s told me so again and again.” Polly’s 
curls danced with her earnest nodding. “ And you 
know when people are frightened they can’t be 
happy,” she finished conclusively. 

“ M-m,” said Mr. Hale, Mr. Hunter and Deacon 
Talcott in concert, as if they had rehearsed it, and 
then every one laughed. 

“ I had a little talk with those selectmen of yours,” 
said Mrs. Leeds to Miss Pomeroy that evening when 
Polly, so sleepy she could hardly keep her eyes open 
after the lamps were lighted, had gone off to bed. 
“ They’ve about decided the town had better hold 
on to Manser Farm in any event, and I don’t believe 
they could have disposed of it legally without a good 
deal of trouble, first and last. I told them they’d 
find the law was easier to get into than out of.” 

“ Mr. Hunter’s brother is considered quite a clever 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


18/ 


lawyer,” said Miss Hetty, smiling. “He’s had a 
good practice all through the county for years. 
He’s been in Europe for six months and just re- 
turned to his home in Colburn a week or two ago. 
I think he has been consulted about this matter.” 

“ Has he ? Well, he may know more law than I 
do and he may know less,” said Mrs. Leeds. “ I’ve 
had great opportunities for looking up points of law. 
A woman of property with a lot of grasping family 
connections has to keep abreast of the times in every 
way, to look out for her interests, and of course my 
husband having been a lawyer and on his way to be 
a judge if he’d lived, I’ve always studied such matters 
carefully.” 

Miss Hetty looked at the face of her old school- 
mate ; its lines were softened by the lamplight and 
furthermore it seemed as if the expression had altered 
a little in the weeks since Mrs. Leeds came to Pome- 
roy Oaks. Miss Hetty laid her hand on the arm so 
near her own. 

“ You’ve had rather a lonely life for a good many 
years, Maria,” she said trying not to make her tone 
too sympathetic, lest it rouse resentment. “ I wish 
there might be somebody, just the right person, to 
keep you company.” 

Then Mrs. Leeds, speaking abruptly, took Miss 
Hetty’s breath away. 


POLLY PRENTISS 


1 88 

“ How would you like to lend me your Polly for 
a few years ? ” she asked. “ I could take her travel' 
ing, have a governess for her — do all sorts of things 
that you can’t.” 

“ Oh, but Polly wouldn’t ” began Miss Pome- 

roy, and then stopped. 

It was Mrs. Leeds’ turn now to put her hand on 
Miss Hetty’s arm, and she did so. 

“ Don’t be afraid to tell me what I know already,” 
she said with a wry smile. “I know there isn’t 
money enough in the world to tempt the child away 
from you ; that’s why I’d like her. I always want 
the things that are out of reach, always have wanted 
them. I’ve tested that Polly of yours every way I 
could think of; I’ve scolded her and ordered her 
around and tried her temper every day I’ve been 
here ; and she has plenty of temper to try, what’s 
more, for all she’s so sunny. Injustice makes her 
angry, and I’ve given her plenty of that to listen to, 
but her love for you and those old Manser Farm peo^ 
pie has made her hold that hot little tongue of hers 
through it all.” 

“ Why have you bothered her so ? ” asked Miss 
Hetty gently. 

“ Why have I bothered her so ? ” repeated Mrs. 
Leeds as she rose. “Because from the very first 
minute I looked into her eyes and saw the love they 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


189 

held for you I was jealous — that’s the reason. 
Why should you be the one to gain affection when 
I can’t, with all I’ve done for people, over and over 
again.” 

“ Polly likes you,” said Miss Hetty softly. “ She’s 
growing to like you very much. She told me so.” 

“ What ! ” said Mrs. Leeds. “ She does ! she told 
you so ? It isn’t possible.” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Hetty, “ and if you let her, 
Maria, she’ll give you her love. Polly has enough 
for everybody who needs it.” 

“ She’d better hand some to me, then,” and Mrs. 
Leeds gave a half laugh. “ I’m so tired, Hester 
Pomeroy, that it’s making me sentimental and 
foolish. It’s high time I went to bed and to sleep. 
To-morrow morning I shall be all ready to criticize 
Polly again, but to-night I can’t help thinking what 
a lucky woman you are ! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


“a loving heart” 

September had come to Pomeroy Oaks, bringing 
with its first week a merry load of visitors. And to 
Manser Farm it had come laden with joy ; for at last 
they all knew, Mrs. Ramsdell and Uncle Blodgett, 
Grandma Manser and Aunty Peebles, that as long as 
they lived their home was assured to them and with 
many comforts and conveniences they had never 
known before. 

One morning when the hills were blue with haze 
and the garden was at its best the four old people sat 
together, and as often happened their talk had 
turned on Polly. They were sitting on the new, 
broad piazza which faced south and on a little table 
near by were four glasses of milk and two plates, one 
holding crackers, the other cookies. Mrs. Ramsdell 
had a cooky in her hand as she spoke. 

“ It’s a blessing having Miss Grace,” she said, tak- 
ing a small bite of her cooky ; “ how in the world she 
can be a cousin of — and yet, I don’t know but the 
one I was about to speak of is a changed woman, so I 
190 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


191 

won’t go on with what I was saying ; at any rate Miss 
Grace is a nice body and her idea of folks needing a 
little snack of something along about this time o’ day 
is the most sensible one I’ve heard of for some time. 
But back of everything we come to Polly. If she 
hadn’t set to, just as she did, we’d have been over in 
Green by Farm, burnt barn, scorched and all, before 
this time. That child ought to have the Victoria 
cross or the Nobel prize, to my thinking.” 

“ She wouldn’t know what to make of any such 
doings,” said Uncle Blodgett proudly. “ Polly isn’t 
one to let her mind dwell on what she’s done for 
others. She just keeps right on her pretty, smiling 
way, making things straight and comfortable for the 
folks she loves — and there’s hardly anybody Polly 
doesn’t love, more or less.” 

“ She has her favorites,” quavered Aunty Peebles. 
“ Don’t make her out more than human, Mr. Blod- 
gett. You know she doesn’t feel to everybody as 
she does to us that have known her from a baby ; 
’twouldn’t be in nature ! ” 

“You talking about Polly?” asked Grandma 
Manser. “ She’s coming over to supper, isn’t she ? 
and bringing all those young friends of hers and that 
senator we’ve heard so much about.” 

“ I never expected to have Congress brought right 
to my very door this way,” said Mrs. Bamsdell. 


192 


POLLY PRENTISS 


“ He’s only staying just two days, that’s every min- 
ute he can spare, so you can see what a compliment 
it is for him to take time to come over here, just be- 
cause we’re Polly’s friends. I kind of wish Mrs. 
Leeds was going to be h'ere to see how that change- 
able silk she gave me fits ; if it had been made for 
me from the start it couldn’t have fitted better ; not 
a thing done to it but that little mite o’ shortening 
the skirt. And you’re going to wear your dove gray, 
I hope and trust, Miss Peebles, and you the lavender, 
grandma. To think how we all actually got suitable 
clothes for such an occasion. And as for what she 
gave your daughter-in-law, grandma, I call it a stroke 
of genius ! Nobody could help feeling ’t they looked 
well in that blue striped silk, and if there’s anything 
more calculated to make you pleasant than knowing 
you’re looking your best, why, I’d like to be told 
what it is.” 

“She’s a well-meaning woman, Mrs. Leeds is,” 
said Mr. Blodgett ; “ I hope this last venture of hers, 
taking that niece of her husband’s that’s lame, will 
turn out satisfactory. She said to me, 4 I’ve never 
wanted her for she isn’t strong and she has to be 
considered, and I’ve never wanted to consider any- 
body but myself, but I’m going to try it ; probably 
I shall give it up at the end of a month.’ But I 
don’t believe she will.” 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


193 


“Of course she won’t,” said Mrs. Ramsdell with 
conviction ; “ she’s a good deal like me ; she’ll have 
times of wishing that young woman was back where 
she came from, but she’ll stick it out. I know her. 
She isn’t the kind to start ploughing and keep look- 
ing over her shoulder thinking how much more 
comfortable ’twas when she was sitting under a tree 
in the shade.” 

“ You’re real allegorical this morning,” said Mr. 
Blodgett. “ What do you say to picking our 
bouquets now, before the sun’s any higher ? They 
won’t grow any to speak of between now and four 
o’clock this afternoon.” 

There was a hint of frost in the air as the day 
waned and when Polly and her guests arrived Mrs. 
Manser drew the little girl into the dining-room. 

“ I want you to touch off the fire in the living- 
room, Polly,” she said nervously ; “ Father Manser 
has laid it best he knew how, and seems as if it 
ought to go all right. I want you to be the one to 
start it, for it’s appropriate you should. I haven’t 
said anything about it before, but I know all these 
changes are your doings. How does this dress set ? 
I hope ’tisn’t too fancy for me.” 

“Oh, no!” cried Polly, giving Mrs. Manser a 
hearty kiss. “ It’s just exactly right for you, and 
so becoming. But wouldn’t you rather have the 


194 POLLY PRENTISS 

senator start the fire ? He’s such an important 
person.” 

“ He may be important where he lives,” said Mrs. 
Manser obstinately, “ but here he isn’t of any more 
importance than Father Manser or Mr. Blodgett. 
You’re the one to touch off that fire.” 

“ Of course I’d be very, very proud to do it,” said 
Polly, and so the matter was settled. 

The guests had been shown over the house and 
had duly admired the new paper and paint, the 
piazza and last of all the garden. 

“ Hid you make dose flowers to grow all by your- 
self, old as you look?” Josephine asked Uncle 
Blodgett, to whom she and Francis had clung like 
limpets from the moment they were introduced. 
“ Polly said so, but we t’ink she has a mistake.” 

“ Polly’s all right,” said Uncle Blodgett gravely. 
“ Old as I look and am I did it all myself. Shows 
that ’tisn’t best to give up even when you’re ’most 
a hundred, now doesn’t it ? ” 

“ How near a hundred are you ? ” asked Francis 
eagerly. “ I will put it in my book where I keep 
all t’ings important and strange.” 

“Well, I can’t give you the exact dates,” said 
Uncle Blodgett easily. “ My folks died when I was 
pretty young and the family record was mislaid 
somehow. You just put down, ‘Saw an old man 


KEEPS A PROMISE 1 95 

named Sam’l Blodgett, looked about a hundred and 
probably is ; ’ how would that do ? ” 

“It is facts I put in my book,” said Francis, 
much disappointed. “ Can you tell me all names of 
your flowers ? ” 

While Mr. Blodgett was engaged in furnishing 
facts about his chrysanthemums, Alicia and Janet 
were admiring the pansies tended all summer by 
Aunty Peebles. Mary was with Mrs. Kamsdell, 
gloating over the nasturtiums. 

“ With the afternoon sun striking on those golden 
heads and glinting through the green leaves,” 
breathed Mary with clasped hands, “your flower-bed 
is the most poetic thing I ever saw, Mrs. Kamsdell. 
And that old wall makes it so romantic. Would 
you care to have me write some verses about it ? ” 
“Would I!” echoed Mrs. Kamsdell. “You just 
try it and see ! I’ve never had so much as a line of 
poetry written about me or any of my belongings. 
I’d be proud as a peacock ! ” 

“ Then I’ll do it,” said Mary. “ It may take me a 
good while, Mrs. Kamsdell, but you may be sure I’ll 
do it, and just as well as I can. I’ll get Polly to 
read it before I send it to you.” 

“She’s an excellent judge,” said Mrs. Kamsdell, 
“from having been familiar with the best poems 
since a child, nothing but the best, in fact. Sam’l 


196 


POLLY PRENTISS 


Blodgett saw to that. She knows pages of our 
national poets and others by heart.” 

“Mine won’t be like that,” said Mary humbly. 
“ It may be a little hitchy.” 

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Ramsdell generously. 
“ You’re young and you’ll improve. I presume they 
all hitched more or less at your age. I shall make 
every allowance.” 

“ It’s a pretty thing to see your little Polly with 
that delicate old lady,” said the senator to Miss 
Hetty as they watched Polly bringing Grandma 
Manser back from the garden, a bunch of rosy 
chrysanthemums in her hands. Robert walked be- 
hind them, deep in conversation with Father 
Manser who had been displaying his squashes and 
discussing farm matters with the boy in a way most 
gratifying to Robert’s pride. 

“ The whole thing is pretty,” said Miss Pomeroy, 
her eyes on the advancing group. “I planned to 
give Polly a little discipline this summer, and she’s 
had it, but it has all turned out happily for her, and 
easily. I wonder if that will always be the way 
with Polly.” 

“ I hope so,” and the senator smiled at her. 
“ Don’t let your New England conscience get to work 
on Polly, my dear Miss Pomeroy. She’s sure to 
have knocks and rubs like all the rest of the world 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


19 7 


as she grows older, but if she can turn them all to 
happiness, let her. There are few enough who can. 
Polly will be an investment in pleasure for other 
people as long as she lives, and there will be many 
eager to take her stock. You may as well make up 
your mind to that. You know I want some of it, 
myself, next year, with your permission.” 

Miss Pomeroy laughed, but she gave a little sigh 
as well. There was no doubt about it any longer ; 
Polly was hers first, but she belonged to many other 
people too. And some day — a day coming nearer 
and nearer — Polly would be grown up. 

“ But she isn’t grown up yet,” Miss Hetty assured 
herself, and truly it seemed that Polly was only a 
little girl when in the dusk she stood close to the 
great, newly-opened fireplace, a match in her hand, 
while Uncle Blodgett made a short but telling 
speech. 

A partition had been taken down, throwing two 
rooms together and making a big sunny living-room, 
open to light and air on three sides. How it was 
full of shadows, but on the mantel gleamed the lights 
of a tall candelabrum, the gift of Mrs. Hate Downer. 
They showed the faces of young and old, gathered 
in a semicircle about the hearth, all listening. 

“ There isn’t much I can say, friends,” began 
Uncle Blodgett slowly, “not because there isn’t 


198 


POLLY PRENTISS 


plenty to be said, but because I’m no speech-maker. 
We who expected to lose our home have had it 
saved for us, and not only saved but beautified be- 
yond our dreams. And when we’re gone it will still 
be a home and a refuge for others to come after us. 
And we are grateful, far beyond words, to the kind 
friends who have done so much for us, to the town 
of Ashdon that has helped when it might have hin- 
dered ; and most of all,” here the old man’s eyes 
turned to Polly, standing so quietly beside him, 
“ most of all to the little girl whose loving heart 
prompted and whose willing hands helped on the 
work at every turn. And I can’t say ” 

His voice faltered, and Mrs. Ramsdell, stepping 
from the center of the group, grasped his hands and 
shook them both. 

“ You don’t need to say another word, and nobody 
could have done better. You’re a born orator, 
Samu’l Blodgett,” said Mrs. Ramsdell with convic- 
tion. “ And you know when to stop, which is more 
than most of them do. Are you going to light the 
fire, Polly?” 

Then Polly, stooping, struck her match on the old 
bricks and a moment later with a roar and a crackle 
and a blaze the first fire built on the hearth of Man- 
ser Farm for many years sprang up the chimney and 
sent its warm and heartening glow out into the room. 


KEEPS A PROMISE 


199 


“ Oh,” said Polly turning her radiant face to the 
little company behind her. “ Was there ever any- 
thing lovelier than that ? And were any of you ever 
gladder ? I never was ! ” 


Other Stories in this Series are : 
LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS 
POLLY PRENTISS GOES TO SCHOOL 
POLLY PRENTISS GOES A- VISITING 












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